


Wunderkind-Season 2

by JustAnotherWriter (N1ghtshade)



Series: Wunderkind [2]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Complete, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Past Rape/Non-con, Rape/Non-con Elements, Team as Family, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2019-11-27 20:11:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 24
Words: 466,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18198776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/N1ghtshade/pseuds/JustAnotherWriter
Summary: Getting Mac cleared of murder and terrorism was only the beginning. Now, the team is hunting down the elusive and dangerous James MacGyver, dealing with the threat of an escaped and obsessed Murdoc, and tackling the most difficult Phoenix cases around the globe...





	1. DIY or Die

**Author's Note:**

> For everyone who's been waiting for the continuation of my AU Wunderkind...I'm so excited to be starting Season 2! A few small notes before we get started...
> 
> The warning for Non-Con added to this story is for mentions of past events and for threat of it in some chapters, I don't expect there to be a repeat of 107 this season. 
> 
> I'm going to try to hold to my chapter a week on Fridays posting schedule with this season as well, but I may end up having to change due to some family health crises that happened over the past couple months that I'm having to deal with. 
> 
> You can come check me out on tumblr @thethistlegirl and you are more than welcome to leave me messages incoherently yelling at me for what my evil brain has managed to put Mac through...

###  201-DIY or Die

 

SOMEWHERE IN SYRIA

MARCH 2014

_ “Agent Cage.” Sam blinks, she’s still getting used to that name. She buried Deborah Riddick two years ago in a river outside Brisbane, but some part of her still hasn’t accepted Samantha Cage as a replacement.  _

_ Samantha is her way of remembering the good pieces of her past, it’s her sister’s middle name and the last tie Sam still has to her old life. To the world before Scorpion. The last name was her way of laughing at the darkness she left behind, the cages literal and figurative that Marton gave her the keys to escape. But it’s been over a year, and sometimes the name still feels foreign in her ears and on her tongue.  _ Accepting it means accepting who I am now. _ Some days, that’s easier than others. And tonight, preparing to do something she did a hundred times for very different people, there’s a part of Deborah creeping back in. She pushes it away, the way she has all through training, through every one of those missions she’s completed.  _

_ Beside her, Roger Marton adjusts his comms. It still feels odd to have a partner she can actually trust, who won’t potentially turn on her if the mission goes south. Working for the legal side of things has its benefits. It’s taken her a long time to trust that she’s not expendable to these people. Or at least not to Marton.  _

_ She’s not sure the SAS approved of him hiring a known hit woman with over fifty confirmed kills in her dossier, but for some reason, he’d refused to give up. He walked her out of the black site where she’d spent the six months after Brisbane, and he’s been beside her every step of the way, from training to her first sanctioned field op to now.  _

_ She breathes steadily in and out, willing herself to focus, to remember what she’s doing here and why. Who she is. Samantha Cage is an SAS agent. Not a criminal. She’s not a cold-blooded killer. It turns out, almost a decade of turning yourself into a soulless creature with one goal is hard to undo.  _

_ She lifts the scarf over her face, the same one that’s disguised her in the streets, and ties it tighter, pulling her hair in tightly, ready for a fight if need be. If all goes well, they’ll simply be retrieving the intel they’re after and leaving. But the one thing Sam’s learned in life is that there’s no such thing as a simple mission.  _

_ True, this time failure won’t result in potential death threats from her own agency. But that won’t help her if she’s caught by this terrorist cell.  _

_ The night wind off the desert is shockingly cool. Sam can see her own breath curling up in front of her in the darkness. She glances up at the wall of the compound and then at Marton. He nods, and then tosses the wrapped hook to the top of the wall. It makes barely a sound as it catches in the decorative edging.  _

_ Sam scrambles up the wall, Marton behind her, and waits until the patrol passes before dropping soundlessly into the courtyard. Staying in the shadows, they slip around the perimeter to the back entrance of the main compound building. Marton carefully slips the lock, and both of them step inside.  _

_ The papers they’re looking for are supposed to be in a room on the second floor. Sam opens the door to the hallway that should get them to the stairs, and then freezes. They’ve been lied to. Intel said this compound was nearly deserted, basically just an information storage site.  _

_ This is an active operation. There are at least half a dozen armed guards inside the building.  _

_ She hopes she can simply close the door and step back, that they’ll be able to get out and regroup. Unfortunately, she’s never been a very lucky person.  _

_ There’s a yell from the hall, and a spray of bullets peppers the door as she pulls it closed. She shoves a crate in front of it, hoping to delay the guards a little, and she and Marton run for the door, ducking to avoid the bullets splintering the wood.  _

_ The second they’re outside, Sam can see multiple shapes closing in on them. They’re going to be trapped between the guards inside and the guards outside, and their only chance of escape is to get to the wall.  _

_ Sam’s SAS training slips aside, replaced by the faster, deadlier Scorpion methods that are far more lethal. She barely feels it when a knife slashes across her ribs, when a bullet grazes her shoulder, when a man’s neck snaps under her hands. This is what she was made to be.  _

_ “Agent Cage!” Marton’s voice in her comms snaps her back from the wild fury. She looks down, panting, at the destruction she’s created. “We need to go! Now!” She can see him coming toward her, his own assailants dealt with.  _ He saw this. He saw me turn back into the monster. _ Her hands are shaking, and she tries to push it all aside. This isn’t the first time she’s lost control on a mission, but it’s the most devastating. There are at least five bodies at her feet.  _

_ And then there’s a spattering of shots, and Marton stumbles. He lurches forward, dark patches spreading on his hip and side. Sam freezes.  _

_ “Go! Get out!” He yells at her, reaching down to grab a gun from one of the men she took out. “I’ll cover you!”  _

_ She shakes her head. She’s already killed heartlessly. She isn’t going to leave someone to die for her, she’s not worth that. Marton is a good man. It should be him that survives, not her. “I can’t leave you here!” _

_ “This is my job.” His voice softens. “Sam, get out. Now.” It’s the tone of voice that won’t take no for an answer.  _

_ She remembers seeing a heavy truck, military type, in the front of the building when they first came in. It’s her only way to get out fast, and it will give her a lot more cover than trying to climb back over the wall. _

_ She runs for the truck, and every second expects to feel the shot that takes her down. But she makes it to the truck unscathed. She scrambles in, yanks out the wires under the dashboard, and hotwires the truck. It roars to life, and for a split second she contemplates driving back, snatching up Marton, alive or dead, and getting them both out. But then five more guards pour out the front door and shots tear through the canvas and smash the left side mirror.  _

_ Sam jams the truck into gear and barrels toward the gate. The shots from the guards there shatter the windshield, and she hears a tire blow and feels the vehicle lurch, but it’s still moving, and the smash as it shatters the wooden gate is a relief.  _

_ Sam clenches her fists around the wheel of the truck, shuddering.  _ This isn’t even close to the first time I’ve been forced to leave a man behind. _ But now there’s an ache in her chest over doing it.  _ Is this what it means to be one of the good guys? 

* * *

103 MILES OFF THE COAST OF FLORIDA

MAC WOULD FIT IN WELL HERE

Being in Cuba reminds Mac of his vigilante days working in the Hispanic neighborhoods in LA. He recognizes the dialect, the food people are hawking on street corners, and the kindness of strangers. 

Unfortunately, he’s also currently being given plenty of reasons to remember the violent gangs. He blinks and flinches as what he’s pretty sure is the fifth punch cuts across his cheek. Another lands on his ribs. He’s fairly sure he heard a soft snap both times. 

He still has a cast from breaking his hand in the fight at the Phoenix a few weeks ago. He’s not really interested in adding to the broken bone collection he’s already sporting. 

Jack’s apparently got the same idea. “You keep punching on the kid, I’m gonna get jealous over here.” Mac shakes his head. He’d like this to stop, but he doesn’t want the man’s anger to get transferred to Jack. He’d rather just get them both out of here. Which is what he’s trying to do. Unfortunately, being repeatedly punched in the face doesn’t make turning a button into something sharp enough to cut through the duct tape they’re tied up with an easy job. 

“Where’s the love?” Jack asks, and their captor stalks around the chair to land what sounds like a solid punch. But Jack just chuckles. “You know, my five year old neice can hit harder than that.” There’s another pounding crack. “Ok, now that’s better. That’s more like the eight year old.”  

There’s a crackle of paper, and then the man’s voice. “ _ Mira! _ ”  _ Look at this _ . “Why are you looking for this man?” 

“He’s dating my sister.” Jack’s chuckle is cut off with another punch. Mac flinches and rubs the button against the rough spot on the chair a little harder. “My cousin?” Another punch. “ _ Mi madre?” _

Mac jumps slightly when the edge of the button slices across his finger and he feels warm blood start to drip down.  _ Okay, sharp enough.  _ He tries to judge where the edge of the tape holding Jack’s wrists is, and slices through it. Jack flinches, and Mac can’t tell if it’s because he moved his probably badly bruised jaw, or if it’s because Mac accidentally cut him. 

“Okay, if you know nothing, maybe I will go back to your friend here.” This time, Mac jabs Jack with the button on purpose.  _ Hopefully he realizes what that means.  _

Jack starts laughing. The man stops in his tracks and stares at him. “What’s so funny?” And then Mac hears the distinctive sound of of Jack’s skull slamming into someone else’s.

He just shakes his head when Jack stands up and starts tearing the duct tape off Mac’s hands. “You know, you could have just punched him.”

“Well, a headbutt sends a much clearer message. And besides, I don’t want to end up with one of these monstrosities on  _ my _ hand.” Jack nods to the cast as he finishes untying Mac. “Aww man, it tore off the spot where I signed it.” He holds up the strip of tape, which is now covered in green cloth webbing with black Sharpie scribble on it. 

“Good. I’m tired of people asking me how I got Bruce Willis to sign my cast.” Mac rolls his eyes. Jack thought it would be a great joke, and despite the fact that he could easily scribble over it, Mac’s left it there because every time he sees it it makes him smile. 

Jack leans over the dazed man on the ground. “Okay, my turn, sunshine. Tell me what you know about this guy.” He taps the man on the head with the photo of Murdoc.

“Why do you want to know?”

“He’s tried to kill me and my friends, and I kinda take that personally.” Jack glances back at Mac, and Mac knows there’s so much more to it than that. He’s still fighting nightmares from those interview sessions. 

“Okay, okay. All I know is he wanted to talk to someone called Miguel. He owns a garage in town. That’s it, I swear.”

Jack punches the guy again for good measure and stands up. “Let’s go say hello to Miguel, then.” 

On the way to the garage Mac calls Riley to update her. She’s still working her way through the damage the attack on the Phoenix did to the servers. She’d offered to come with them anyway, but Mac assured her they’d be fine. And really, they are. It’s just some bruises and cracked bones. 

Jack knocks on the door of the garage, then pushes it open. There’s only one person inside, a man leaning down under the hood of a beat up car. 

“ _ Buenos dias!  _ You Miguel?” Jack shouts.

The man looks up and starts toward them automatically, but Mac can see the second his eyes catch sight of the bruises and blood.  _ He knows something’s not good.  _ He starts to back away.

“Hey man, we just want to talk.” Apparently Jack’s not too reassuring with a bloody nose and black eye. Miguel races for a car parked outside, jumps in, and speeds away. Mac and Jack run for the door, but it’s too late. The car’s already at the corner of the street. 

Jack runs back inside, glancing around the shop before hurring to the ancient motorcycle with a sidecar parked in the middle of the room. It’s the only thing in the shop that doesn’t have its engine torn to pieces. 

“Oh, baby, haven’t seen one of these in years. Looks like Pops’s.” He shakes his head as the engine groans but refuses to turn over. “Good thing he didn’t listen when Momma told him not to teach me how to ride it.” 

Mac looks around quickly. He’s spent plenty of time in places like this, and he already has an idea. Thanks to years at Weathers’s shop, he knows exactly what he’s looking for. He snatches a chain, a couple curved wrenches, a piece of metal tubing, and a road hazard flare, then jumps into the sidecar just as Jack succeeds in getting the engine to turn over. 

“Man, this is what your heaven looks like, isn’t it?” Jack asks. 

“Yeah, everything’s improvised!” 

They roar out of the garage, and take a corner at a speed Mac thinks just might be a bit unsafe. “Say your prayers, Jack’s driving!” Jack whoops as they zoom after the car.

Miguel has quite a head start, but it’s fairly easy to follow his trail; he’s driving a lot faster than a lot of the other people on the road, and there are plenty of horns and shouts to mark his progress. Plus the car he left in was a red convertible, which does make him a little more identifiable. Mac leaves the navigating to Jack and focuses on creating his makeshift grappling hook, it gives him something to focus on that isn’t how Jack is going to kill them. 

Jack catches up with the car on the highway, overlooking the ocean. 

“Get us right behind him,” Mac says, putting the finishing touches on his grappling hook contraption. 

“Are you sure this is gonna work?” Jack asks.

Mac figures he might as well be honest at this point. “Nope.”

“Cool.” Jack’s voice has that characteristic sound it gets when he’s smirking.  _ Somehow at this point, I think telling him I’m not sure of something is actually reassuring.  _ He aims carefully and lights the road flare. 

The hook scrapes down the back of the car and catches on the bumper, and Mac groans. That won’t last long; they’ll need to move fast. He secures the chain around part of the bike and slowly works them closer to the car. Once they’re close enough, he ignores Jack’s wordless warning and raised eyebrows and jumps from the sidecar to the back of the convertible. 

The bumper snaps free, and Mac gets a glimpse of Jack’s motorcycle weaving wildly before hitting the seawall and tossing Jack into the ocean. He turns back to the driver, who’s glanced back to see what the rending screech was. Mac dives forward and grabs for the wheel, and the car fishtails wildly and then heads straight for the same wall Jack just got tossed over. 

Mac wonders why his last thought before the car smashes through the seawall is  _ damn it, they told me not to get my cast wet. _

* * *

ONE MONTH LATER

HOLLYWOOD HILLS, LOS ANGELES

It feels good to be home. Jack tosses his go bag on Mac’s porch chair. 

They called ahead, so Bozer has the firepit going, Matty, Riley, Cage, and Patty are standing around with drinks already, and Mickey is grabbing excitedly for the rope toy Mac bought for him at a street market in Argentina. Jack swears that dog is twice as big as he was when they left.

He grabs a beer of his own from the fridge and joins the crowd on the patio. 

“So, how was the trip?” Bozer asks. He winces when he stands up to give Jack a hug, and Jack wonders if his healed injury is still tender.  _ Stab wounds are no fun.  _

Jack decides to start at the beginning, and with the important stuff. “Cuba was great. I did get to, uh, Evel Knievel a seawall, which was nice, and pick up a box of these bad boys.” Jack holds out the box of cigars. Riley reaches for them, but Patty takes them first. 

“I think this should just about cover that month of vacation time you requested, Dalton.” He groans.

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you about sharing?”

“Oh, I’ll share,” Patty says, opening the box and holding it out to Matty and Riley. “Just not with you.” 

It’s a little odd having her back inside the circle. Especially since she’s now Oversight, and their last version never showed his face to any of his underlings. Granted, that was probably because he was a psycho conniving with the Organization, or Omnus, or whatever they were, but still. Having the agency’s actual head of operations sitting on the back porch is a little surreal. 

Mac finally gets Mickey to stop trying to smother him with licks and joins them. Riley tosses him a beer, and he pops the cap off with his new knife. He’s already lost the toothpick, and it’s picked up a couple scratches and dings, Jack notices. 

“Oh my gosh, Mac,  _ what _ did you do to your hair?” Bozer asks, as Mac leans forward into the circle of firelight. 

Mac shrugs. Jack knows he doesn’t want to talk about the guy in that alley in Bosnia who backed him against a wall, grabbed a fistful of his hair, and held a knife to his throat before Jack got there to take him out. 

“Jack cut it.” It had been a rush job, in a hotel bathroom, at three a.m., after Mac woke up from the same screaming nightmare of Bishop prison for the fourth time.  _ He wanted to know no one else was going to do that to him.  _

“I kind of figured,” Riley chuckles. “If you want, I can fix it for you.” 

“I don’t know, Riley, I think the patchy porcupine look is popular right now,” Sam cuts in. Mac punches her shoulder. Despite the few incidents on their trip, Jack has noticed that on the whole, Mac’s a little sassier and less likely to roll with the punches than he used to be.  _ Probably a side effect of not having to worry about going back to prison.  _ Jack likes this new version of Mac.

“So what happened in Cuba besides motorcycle tricks?” Riley asks. 

“We did manage to track down a guy who let Murdoc into the country. Unfortunately, he was only picking up some cash and papers from a stash he had there, and then he ghosted. But when we finally got our man Miguel talking, he led us to the stash site, and I guess Murdoc was planning on us paying a visit.”

“What do you mean?” Matty asks. “Did he set a trap?”

“Surprisingly no,” Mac says. “Murdoc had left a letter there addressed to me.” He goes silent, staring into his bottle like there’s a message in there too. 

Jack picks up the story. “Apparently, his dad’s playing ‘where in the world is Carmen Sandiego’ and Mac’s supposed to follow the clues.” 

“Any luck?” Riley asks. 

Jack mentally ticks off the stamps in his passport. “Well, we tracked him to a hostel in Barcelona, a crash pad in Kiev, and then a cabin in Patagonia.”

“Which was a dead end, aside from this.” Mac lifts his wrist, Jack kind of gets the creeps every time he sees the leather-banded watch there.  _ Kid’s obsessed with tracking down his evil dad.  _ It can’t be healthy how much Mac’s fixated on the whole search.  _ It’s one thing that he wants to bring in a guy the Phoenix and every other alphabet agency’s been after for years. It’s something else entirely that he’s willing to play that man’s mind games to do it. _

Something about the trail they’ve been following rubs Jack the wrong way. Like James is making Mac prove he’s good enough to meet him.  _ Kid shouldn’t have to prove himself to anyone, least of all a scum monster like that.  _

“We’re gonna get him, Mac,” Jack says, rubbing the kid’s shoulder before resting his hand there as a reminder that Mac’s only reason to find James should be closure.  _ His family’s here now, us _ . Mac nods and stares into the fire. 

“You know, I used to hope,” Mac whispers, and Jack can’t tell if he’s forgotten they’re not alone anymore. These are the kind of conversations usually had in a car staking out a likely hiding place James could have used, or sitting on the edge of a bed in a hotel room when Mac’s having a harder time than usual keeping the nightmares at bay. “I used to think he might come back home. I even thought it would be okay if he had another family somewhere. I kind of hoped he did, maybe he loved them more than me and that would explain everything. But I think somehow I knew what he was. I just wanted to lie to myself.”

Jack’s heard a hundred variations of this over the past month. Coming from anyone else, the repetitive stories would frustrate him, but he can tell Mac’s simply trying to process the truth that’s been withheld from him for the past fifteen years.  _ That would do a number on anyone, let alone a kid with Mac’s issues. _

They shouldn’t have even left LA when they did, Patty had wanted Mac to wait until his hand healed. But Mac couldn’t bear to be in his own house, wondering if Harry had known. If his grandfather had lied to him all those years. He’d been so desperate for closure. And so far, they have nothing. 

Sam’s phone rings, and she rolls her eyes and pulls it out, glancing at the screen. Suddenly her face goes white and she stands up, knocking over her beer as she practically jumps over the bench and walks to the deck railing. 

Jack can only hear her side of the conversation.

“Are you sure? Oh my God, he’s alive?” Her free hand is wrapped white-knuckled around the railing. “They can’t do that. They can’t abandon him, not now.” Jack glances at the others, but even Patty shrugs. 

Sam hangs up and turns back around. “I need your help,” she says, and her voice is oddly quiet. “We have to save the man who saved my life.” 

* * *

THE PHOENIX FOUNDATION

MOST PEOPLE THINK IT’S JUST A THINK TANK

It’s odd to see Cage up front doing the briefing. Mac knows she’s now classed as a field agent again after everything that happened with the siege of the Phoenix a couple months ago, but he hasn’t been around to see that change. Just seeing her in the War Room is somewhat unusual. 

There’s a dossier on the screen, and a picture of a smiling man in his early forties. Mac recognizes the insignia watermarked on the files as SAS, from the quick rundown Riley gave him of the various covert organizations when they started. Australian field ops agency. He would have expected as much anyway, given that this guy is tied to Sam’s past.  

Sam’s normally composed demeanor is shaken. She’s pacing back and forth in front of the screen, arms crossed, and Mac can see her right index finger drumming repetitively on her other arm. 

“Roger Marton was the one who pulled me out of a black site prison and offered me another chance.” Mac knows the kind of shadowed haunting in her eyes.  _ When you expect the rest of your life to be spent in a place like that… _

Cage has been a lot more open in talking about her past since Tennant’s been captured and her former black agency, Scorpion, is now dissolved. “He had been working an op that tied back to me, and for some reason, when he interviewed me, he decided I was worth trying to flip. He worked out a deal, even though his superiors were strongly against it.” This is sounding more and more familiar; Mac blinks away the memories of being cuffed to an interrogation table in California Correctional, listening to Jack and Riley lay out the terms of his release. 

_ That feels like a lifetime ago.  _ When they first approached him for his help to track down that stolen virus, he’d had no idea that less than a year later he’d be standing here as a trained Level 1 Phoenix field agent, without a life sentence and charges of murder and domestic terrorism hanging over him. Sometimes he’s still afraid he’s going to blink and wake up and this will all have been a dream. 

“Marton handled my training personally, he might have been the only SAS agent who trusted me not to kill him the second he turned his back. After that, I was his partner for seven months. We ran twenty-three ops together. The last one was a raid on a Syrian terrorist compound.” She pulls up a mission briefing that’s date-stamped March 2014. 

“It was supposed to be a data retrieval mission, but we had bad intel. The second we were inside, we were walking into a trap.” She flicks to an action report. “We got made as soon as we entered the building, and ended up having to fight out way out. Marton was wounded and stayed behind to buy me time to get out. He sacrificed his freedom, and at the time I thought his life, to save me.” 

“But he’s alive?” Riley asks. 

“This was sent yesterday, to Marton’s wife.” Cage pulls up the image of an email, the spelling occasionally subpar, that clearly demands a five million dollar ransom for one Roger Marton, to be delivered in a week.

“His wife and parents have started an online fund, hoping to raise the money. Unfortunately, that’s the extent of what’s being done at this point.”

“No one’s going after him?” Jack asks.

“The official position of Australian authorities is that this is a hoax.” Cage shakes her head, catching a strand of her hair and twisting it. “After no contact or evidence of his survival for two years, and without definite proof of life, this note could be attempting to profit off false hope.” 

“But you believe it’s legitimate.” Matty’s not asking a question.

“I don’t know. Two years is a long time, but if anyone could survive that, it would be Roger.” Cage glances back at the dossier photo on the screen. “Even if he is dead, I want to find the people responsible for twisting the knife for his family, and trying to profit off his death. At least it would mean there was some closure.” 

Jack nods. Mac glances at him; he’s heard Jack tell the story of how one of his early missions ended in a man left behind for dead, who later turned out to have been captured and tortured for six months.  _ He’s promised he’ll never leave anyone else behind, no matter what. _

Patty speaks up, finally. “This is not an officially sanctioned mission. Neither the US government or the Australian authorities have authorized action on this intel. You would have to volunteer, and if you are captured in-country, the agency will deny all connections to you and you will be disavowed.” 

Mac glances at Cage and he knows exactly how she feels.  _ What Marton did for her is what Jack and Riley and Thornton and Matty did for me. If any one of them was out there, I wouldn’t stop until I brought them home. _ Even though the thought of getting disavowed again scares the hell out of him, he’s not letting her go alone.

“I’m in.”

“Hell yeah. Leave no man behind,” Jack says.

“I’m game.” Riley and Bozer glance at each other and then yell “jinx”, breaking the somber mood for a moment. 

“Well, it looks like we’re going to Syria,” Cage says, and Mac can hear the relief in her voice. “Wheels up in twenty.” 

* * *

SOMEWHERE OVER EGYPT

TOO CLOSE TO CAIRO FOR JACK’S TASTE

It feels odd to have Cage on the Phoenix jet. Jack’s unable to avoid fidgeting as they pass over Cairo, and of course Sam the mind reader picks up on it. Jack’s half tempted to call her Professor X, if he wasn’t just a little afraid she might actually be able to kick his ass for it. He’s seen the footage of what she did to those Scorpion agents in the Phoenix. 

“Impatient, Jack?”

“Just to get out of bad luck central.” He’s pretty sure she’ll mock him for his superstitions, but instead, she just glances out the window.

“Cairo?” She asks. “I can see how the threat of nuclear annihilation would make you a little jumpy.”

“How the hell…”  _ Maybe she actually  _ is _ a mind reader. _

“Don’t look at me like that. Riley told me everything.” She leans back in her chair with the self-satisfied smirk that reminds Jack of the barn cat who taught herself to crack eggs. 

Jack shakes his head. Cage has been Riley’s roommate the better part of a year, and she’s only recently moved out. Now that she’s a full field agent, not just a temporary consultant, she gets the perks that come with it, including an apartment; and she’s decided to accept it.  _ Fresh start, and a new place to do it in. _ He knows she and Riley didn’t have a problem living together, but it probably feels good to have a place all her own. Jack’s pretty fond of his space too; comes with the territory of being an agent. But he doesn’t have a problem with one particular housemate; he’s starting to think the guest room should be more properly called “Mac’s room”.  _ The kid needs to feel safe right now. _ Jack’s lost count of the times Mac fell asleep in his arms over the past month, after a rough nightmare.  _ He’s never been allowed to be scared or to need comfort.  _ The first time it happened, Mac kept apologizing. Jack quickly realized that physical comfort is apparently just another thing James taught Mac he didn’t deserve.  _ That man didn’t deserve a son like Mac. _ Not that Jack does either, but he’s trying to do his best.  _ Kid deserves better than me, but I’m gonna try. _

Riley is curled up on another couch, Jack has half a mind to go scold her for spilling the Cairo secret, but she’s sleeping so he decides he’ll pester her later. 

Mac shouts an indefinable successful cheer from the back of the plane, where he and Bozer have been playing Uno for what seems like forever. Jack hears Mac get up and walk over to where he and Cage are sitting; the kid’s step pattern is burned into Jack’s brain.  _ How did I get attached so fast? _ Calling Mac “Carl’s Jr.” and second-guessing his crazy methods seems like something another person did.  _ Sometimes I feel really guilty for how badly I treated him. _ But there’s nothing Jack can do about it now, and Mac doesn’t seem to hold it against him. 

When Mac sits down, he’s fiddling with that damn watch again. He keeps twisting it, and it’s rubbing a raw red line around his wrist. Jack hates that it looks a little like the kind of damage handcuffs leave. 

“I’m surprised you decided to wear that on a field op,” Cage says.

“It’s just a watch,” Mac mumbles.

“No, I think you just don’t want to let it out of your sight. It’s the only thing you have to still tie you to James, and it’s the last clue you found. Even though you don’t know what it means.” Jack smiles. Sam’s blunt, perceptive honesty is painful when directed at him, but he’s glad she’s willing to call Mac out. 

“I just don’t understand.” He twists the band again. “There’s nothing written on it, it doesn’t mean anything, really. He just always wore it. And before you ask, it’s the same watch, see how the gold line for the 11 is loose and stuck to the crystal?” he taps the glass. “He never fixed that. He took that watch apart all the time, working on the gears and movement, but he never repaired the face.” 

“Could that be a clue?”

“Believe me, that’s the first thing I thought of. But the number 11 doesn’t have any special significance, and besides, the watch was like this long before he left.” 

Jack sighs, settling back a little further into his chair. They know nothing. But Mac won’t let go.

* * *

OUTSIDE ISTANBUL

HOPEFULLY

Sam huddles under the straw, trying not to breathe too deeply and praying one of the goats doesn’t find her headscarf appetizing. She’s never been a fan of sneaking through borders like this, some checkpoint guards are more thorough than others. And it absolutely ruins clothes. Still, she thinks the chicken truck in Mexico was probably the worst experience. 

She can hear yelling in Turkish as the truck grinds to a rattling halt, and even though the sound is muffled by straw, she can tell the driver is being asked to stop for a search. She holds her breath, as much to keep from sneezing on the powerful smell of goat as to avoid detection by someone overhearing her breaths. There’s a swish and thud as something sharp is jabbed into the straw just beside her head.

She and Jack put Mac between them, in the very center of the vehicle. It’s the safest spot, in theory. If the guards prod around the outside edges, they might not be able to reach that far. If they think something’s wrong and decide to start shooting, that’s another matter entirely, but then no place is safe anyway. 

There’s a soft grunt, and Cage flinches.  _ Did they hit Jack? _ She braces herself for the shouts and gunfire, but nothing happens, and she dimly hears someone bang on the side of the truck and yell at them to go on. 

When the rattletrap vehicle stops at the edge of an abandoned town, Cage slides out, shaking out her headscarf and rewrapping it carefully, handing the driver the rest of the money she promised him. This is as far as he’s going in their direction. 

Mac and Jack are crawling out the the straw as well, both of them taking grateful breaths of fresh air and brushing at their clothes. 

“I thought they had you back there at the checkpoint,” Sam says as Jack joins her, slapping exaggeratedly at the straw on his chest. 

“Damn goat stepped on my hand,” Jack mutters. “Man, they stink. Give me a good old cow pie any day over these things.” He waves a hand in front of his face and brushes some straw out of his short hair. 

Mac brushes straw out of his own hair, although in actuality it’s hard to see the difference between the pale stalks of dried grass and Mac’s blond hair. Riley did actually tidy it up a little on the flight, it looks marginally less like someone hacked it off with a blunt knife. Sam switches on her comms, there shouldn’t be anyone scanning for radio traffic here in the middle of nowhere.

“Well, I have good news and bad news,” Riley says. “You’re through the most problematic checkpoint, but you’re still thirty miles from where I’ve tracked that terror cell’s ransom message’s origin. Bozer and I are going to be here to provide overwatch until you get there, but I can’t find you another transportation method.” 

Sam glances around her at the bombed-out town, cars torched or cannibalized for parts. “I guess we’re walking.”

“Not necessarily.” Mac is kicking around the weeds, and he holds up an old M-134. “One of these cars is only missing a starter. I think I might be able to get it running.” 

Sam glances at the vehicle in question, an old beige sedan with smashed-out windows and one flat tire.  _ It looks past repair to me. But I guess I of all people should know not to give up on things.  _

Mac glances around. “Jack, see if you can find the supplies to change a tire. That car over there is only burnt out in the front, and these models are old enough that the tires are probably interchangeable, at least for the amount of time we’ll be driving. Sam, siphon all the gas you can from every car that doesn’t look like it’s been here too long, and run it through a piece of your scarf into this can.” He tosses her one he’s pulled out of the car trunk, closing his knife. She guesses he used a blade to pop the trunk lock. 

She finds an old hose behind one of the buildings, next to a weedy, wild garden, and cuts off a length. Siphoning petrol is old news to her, and in labout half an hour she has the can mostly filled. 

She’s walking back to where Jack is dusting off his hands and Mac is putting the finishing touches on wiring the mini-gun motor to the car’s engine. 

Jack joins her where she’s pouring fuel through a folded scrap of her scarf into the car’s tank. “You do realize the government is probably right about this, and your friend is dead, right?”

Sam knows. She’s been trying not to remember, this whole time. But the truth is, statistically, Marton is probably long gone. But she tries not to let Jack see how badly the thought affects her.  _ Bottle up the emotions until the mission is over. _ That’s one thing SAS and Scorpion had in common. 

“Then at least I get the satisfaction of finding the bastards trying to profit off his death and breaking some bones.” She smiles, but she’s sure both of them know it’s not genuine. 

She sets down the empty can, and rejoins Mac at the front of the car. “Well, are you ready to see if this works?” 

Her comms buzz, and Riley’s voice comes through, sharp and urgent. “Guys, you’ve got company. Something big just turned down your road, and it’s coming fast.” 

And then the quiet desert air is cut by the rumble of something approaching. Between the trees, Cage catches sight of camouflage canvas and thick tires.  _ Turkish military patrol. _ If they get caught here, they’re done. But she does have an idea.

Mac and Jack are both staring at the approaching vehicle as well. “Do you trust me?” She asks. Both of them nod. And then Sam snatches her gun from her thigh holster and trains it on Jack, just as the truck turns a corner and comes into full view of them. 

She switches expertly to Turkish, praying her accent is still passable.  _ “Get down. Down on the ground. Or I will shoot you.” _

Mac and Jack slowly comply, raising their hands. The truck stops and two of the soldiers jump out, turning their own guns on Mac and Jack. Sam turns to the man who approaches her, making sure her scarf still covers most of her face. 

_ “I caught these two trying to steal a car. There are more Americans in a building, in there.”  _ She gestures to the town, and the man with the highest-rank insignia on his uniform waves to the vehicle and shouts. Four more soldiers scramble out of the back and follow him into the village. 

_ Okay, two is good odds. _

Cage smiles at the man left to help her guard her ‘prisoners’, and then smashes her elbow into his jaw. He goes down hard, and she fires a single shot over him through the windshield of the truck, not to hit the driver, but to scare him. He ducks, predictably,  and she wrenches open the door and yanks him out onto the ground, slamming his head into her knee to knock him out. 

She scrambles into the truck. “Get in, let’s go.”

Mac and Jack scramble in the other side, Jack pausing to shoot out two of the tires of the car they just spent the better part of an hour repairing. 

“Sorry about wrecking your plan, Mac,” she says apologetically.

“I don’t even know if it was going to work.” He shrugs, but she can tell it bothers him that he didn’t get to test his theory.  _ When we get home, I’ll find a junker somewhere and let him rip it apart.  _ “Besides, we should be able to get past the rest of the checkpoints without a problem, with this vehicle.”

Cage nods, that was her plan. No one should question a military vehicle. At least not until they’re long gone. 

* * *

TEN MILES FROM THE TERRORISTS

AND GETTING CLOSER

“That was one badass Jedi mind trick back there, Sam,” Jack says. He’s leaning on the window, watching the scenery go past, trying not to think about all the missions he’s been on in places like this. In vehicles like this.

“I’m just glad they didn’t realize my accent was a fake.” Sam looks jittery too. Jack can’t tell if this is flashback central for her too, or if it’s just wanting to find out what’s waiting for them at the end of this. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been in this part of the world.”

Jack nods. “So quitting the field… was that because of Marton?”

“No.” Sam shakes her head almost imperceptibly. “I was a field operative for a year and a half after Syria. Roger wouldn’t have wanted me to quit. He didn’t save my life for me to walk away from the things he believed in. He died, or I thought he did, fighting for a cause he was willing to sacrifice everything for. The best way to honor his memory was to continue his legacy.” 

“If you don’t mind me asking, why did you leave?” Mac grabbed some of the extra wires while he was working on the car, and he’s twisting one into a shockingly accurate outline of the continent of Australia. 

“I was on an undercover operation in Singapore, and our covers were blown. One agent was injured and died during exfil, another still walks with a cane, and that’s where I got this.” She nods to a long scar just visible below her rolled sleeve; Jack recognizes it as the surgical scar for repairing a damaged elbow joint. One of the ranch hands has the same thing, after he got thrown by a greenbroke filly and got all busted up. 

“I was able to identify the man who turned us in when I got a look at security footage after the op. He was Scorpion. Which meant that they knew I was working with the SAS now, that I was a major liability. Any time I showed my face, it would put every member of my team at risk. So I immediately transferred to an in-house position, and then when the opportunity came up to join DXS and move to another country, I took it.” She smiles a little. “I’ve had no reason to regret it.” 

“Alright, guys, you’re right on top of the location,” Riley says, and all three of them jump. Jack glances through the truck window at what must be their target, a two-story concrete building that just  _ looks _ nefarious. He’s always had a sort of sixth sense about these things, saved his ass in the Sandbox more than once. 

“Yeah Riles, we’ve got a two story building with bars on every window, and…” He pulls out a pair of binoculars, “Looks like heavy gauge locks on every one of the lower level doors.” 

“Exactly the kind of security upgrades you’d want if you were holding a high value military hostage.” There’s a bit of excitement seeping through Cage’s voice, and Jack can’t blame her. He knows what it’s like to want to bring every man home. 

_ The last guy my team left was gone for six months, and it almost broke me...and him. I can’t imagine what two years did for Cage and Marton. _

“Hey Mac, I’m guessing you gotta plan for getting us in there?” Jack asks. The kid’s staring at the building, eyes narrowed in that look Jack knows means he’s thinking. 

“Yeah, I think I do.” He looks from the visible portico on the second level to a dilapitated chain-link fence nearby. “We’re gonna need that pipe.” 

* * *

Mac snips the few remaining wires holding the twelve-foot section of fence pipe in place, and he and Jack and Cage pull it free.  _ This should work. In theory. _ He ignores the fact that the last time he tried it, he ended up on the ground with a bruised butt and a sprained wrist.  _ Bozer and I were using a branch, and it snapped. This won’t do that.  _ He’d lost his interest in trying to be an even more sciency version of Spiderman for quite a while after that.

“Okay, I’m going to need you to grab the back of that pole to anchor me.”

“Anchor you for what?” Cage asks. Mac knows she’s never seen him work in the field, at least not very often. She’s read the action reports, and seen footage when they have it, but it’s really not the same as being on the ground in the thick of it.

“I’ve learned not to ask,” Jack says. “When it comes to Mac, I think the best option is just blind faith.” 

Mac wishes he was as sure as Jack apparently is that this is going to work. Hopefully rambling about science will help. “Well, I’m going to use this pole to overcome the force of gravity.”

“You’e going to pole vault into a terrorist lair? Man, that’s awesome,” Jack chuckles. 

“No, not exactly. I need both of you to walk this back, and then when I say, run straight toward the building, pushing up. It should give me enough support that I can walk up this wall.”

“We’d better do it fast. I haven’t seen a guard come around yet,” Sam mutters. Mac nods. He glances up at the wall and really wishes he’d had time to make some improvised climbing spikes. 

“Okay, three, two, one...now!” He braces his feet on the wall and starts up, as Jack and Cage put pressure on the pipe. It’s not the fastest process, and his heart is pounding as much from the stress of worrying a guard is going to walk around any second and shoot them as from the feeling of being too far off the ground.

There’s a moment of panic when the pipe reaches its full extension, and the momentum ends. Mac feels himself starting to fall, but he shoves off the wall as hard as he can, throwing himself across to the railing of the little overhang and grabbing on. He has to take a few deep breaths before he can pull himself up and over.

Inside, the building is quiet, and there’s a disconcerting smell. Mac immediately recognizes it as a combination of human habitation and decay. He hopes these guys are just less than scrupulous about their trash pickup, but he has a really bad feeling about this. There’s no sound coming from anywhere, and he can hear flies buzzing frantically behind a door in the hallway. 

He doesn’t want to be in here without backup. He sneaks down to the main level, more worried about not meeting a guard than if there was one.  _ What happened? Did they leave? Are we going to find Marton’s body in here?  _

He unlocks one of the doors and peeks out. Jack and Sam are crouched in a corner, mostly hidden from view. He calls them over comms and they pop out from their cover and hurry to the door. “What’s going on?” Jack asks. 

“I don’t know. It seems deserted.” Jack and Cage draw their sidearms and step inside, carefully sweeping the whole first floor. There’s nothing there. 

They make their way up to the second, and Mac forces the lock on the room he heard the buzzing coming from. When he opens the door, he steps back, gasping and then choking on the smell. There are five men in the room, all dead.

Jack steps inside, apparently oblivious to the stench. “Two shots, center mass. Whoever did this was a professional.”

“Probably more than one someone,” Cage says. “This was fast, they never even got their weapons up to fire. It was a surprise attack.” 

“And look what’s missing.” Jack glances at the floor. 

“Shell casings,” Sam says. “They picked all of them up. Whoever did this, they were professionals.”

“Yeah, but what pros? Third party agency or rival terrorist cell?” Jack mutters. Mac glances at the floor again, mostly to avoid the sight of the staring blank eyes, and he sees a faint scuff mark near a set of shelving. 

“Guys, I think there’s a secret room back here.” Jack helps him pull the shelving aside, and the movement reveals a small cell, with manacles on the wall and a torn straw-stuffed mattress on the floor. 

Sam pushes past them both, kneeling down by the wall and using the tactical light on her handgun to illuminate something scratched into the plaster. “It was Marton. He was here, he was alive.” She points to a letter and two numbers crudely carved into the wall. “T-31 is short for Tiger 31, his agency callsign.”

“So our dude was here, but then someone else showed up, popped off the guards, and snatched him?” Jack says. “They didn’t bother to shoot him here, so they must have wanted him. But they haven’t turned him in either. Who are these guys?”

“I might be able to help with that,” Riley says over comms. “Guys, your phones just did a digital handshake with an open Wi-Fi router there, with the same IP as the ransom note was sent from. I’m going to scan the network and see if any other devices did the same.”

Mac steps out of the room, and Jack and Cage do the same. It seems even they’re starting to be affected by the smell. 

It doesn’t take Riley long to get what she needs. “I’ve got five signals, not ones that normally used the network, popping up for about ten minutes twenty-three hours ago.” Riley pauses, and Mac hears a few more keystrokes. “About two hours after that ransom message was sent.” 

“That’s too fast to have had any tactical response team in the area,” Cage says.

“Looks like someone else was snooping around, and when these guys sent out that note, they gave away their location. They were hoping for a payday, and they ended up getting full of lead.” Jack glances at the room behind them. “Any chance you can find where those phones are now?”

“They were burners, so they’ve been dumped. But I can track where they’ve been.” Riley taps away. “Okay, the only locations where all of them were together were there at that compound, and here.” There’s a beep, and a set of coordinates flashes up on Mac’s phone. He hears the others’ ping as well. 

“Then let’s get going.” Mac’s only too glad to leave that place behind.

* * *

ISTANBUL

NOT THE TOURISTY PART

“This is it?” Jack glances up at the fortress surrounding them. “That’s a fortress, man. Probably got a moat and a drawbridge and everything. I don’t do castles, Mac. I always die in Dungeons and Dragons.”

“Dungeons and Dragons?” Cage asks, at the same time that Mac mutters something about this being a  _ hisar _ .

“Riley was really into it when she lived in Portland. Guess she’d been doing it since she was a kid. It was a big deal when she was actually home for a game night.” He used to drive her to the coffeehouse and sit and wait for her to get done playing for the night. 

“I know  _ that, _ ” Cage says, grinning. “She and I still have a campaign running. I’m an elvish warrior…”

“And she’s still an archer, right?” Jack asks.

“Well, it’s a little more complicated than that…”

“That  _ game _ is too damn complicated. Too many stats and math and stuff. I tried to play but it was just too much.”

“The way I hear it, you got kicked out for being disruptive.” Sam smirks.

“Hey! I was a wandering bard. I was just trying to get into character.” Jack stops, and realizes Mac’s been rambling on to himself this whole time.

“It’s one of the castles built by the sultans of the Ottoman Empire between 1299 - and 1453 A.

D.,” Mac continues. “Riley, can you get a map of it?”

“A map you can get on Wikipedia. I'm getting full schematics of all defensive upgrades since this  _ hisar _ was built.”

“And?”

“Give me a minute, Jack, I'm hacking the secured network of a foreign government in a language I don't speak. But also, I’m totally in.”

Bozer chimes in. “So we're looking at a 6,000 square foot building, with two levels, not including the basement. And 13, 14, 15 rooms, which is bad because Marton could be in any one of them.”

“I might be able to narrow that down for us.” Riley continues typing. “There’s a video feed being recorded inside, and the camera is attched to a wireless streaming app. But the signal is too weak for me to hack it. I need to be able to bounce it off something else in the building I have access to.”

“What about a phone? If we could get one inside, could you use that?”

“It would probably boost the signal strength enough. But how are you going to get one in there?” Mac glances out at a group of kids kicking around a makeshift soccer ball made out of newspapers and plastic bags. 

“I think I know.” 

* * *

Jack watches Mac wander out into the square and start talking to the kids. He takes a few paperclips out of his pocket, bends them into some sort of shape, it’s too far away for Jack to see, and hands them to the kids.

In return, they toss him the makeshift soccer ball they’ve been kicking around. Mac walks back with the ball under his arm and a genuine grin on his face.  _ He loves kids so much. _ Jack remembers him playing with the Dalton family nephews and nieces at Christmas.  _ He would have been so good as a teacher.  _ But now that’s not going to happen, no one’s going to let someone with Mac’s criminal past anywhere near children. 

Mac makes some modifications to the ball, adjusting strings and digging into the mangled center of it. He holds out his hand. “Phone, Jack?”

“Hell no, man. Use your own damn phone this time.” Now that he’s off the most severe restrictions of his parole, Mac’s phone isn’t being monitored. He can break it without repercussions, and that makes Jack almost pathetically gleeful.  _ He’s destroyed thirty-seven phones to date, most of them mine.  _ The Genius Bar is keeping a running tally. And that doesn’t count the times Mac’s taken one of their phones and done something that leaves it still mostly in one piece. 

Mac sighs, but digs his own phone out of his pocket. It’s still pretty new, they had to replace all their tech after that unplanned swim in Kiev. He shoves the phone into the center of the ball, and then glances from it to an open window on the second floor. “Now, we just need to get it into one of those windows.”

“I can do that,” Jack says, taking the ball from him. Really, he just wants an excuse to boot Mac’s phone at something. Finally. 

Cage reaches for the ball as well. “I played soccer from the time I was four all the way through...well, until I left home.”

Jack doesn’t let go, fully aware that this is petty.  _ But we’re finally using Mac’s phone for one of his crazy plans.  _ “Yeah? Yeah? And I was the kicker for my middle school football team, okay? I once had six field goals in one game. That's a division record.”

“You did say middle school, though, right?” Cage shakes her head.

“And who has been actually out in the field in the past year, keeping up their targeting skills and muscle tone?” Jack asks, smirking. 

Mac cuts in, looking seriously embarrassed at their antics. “Settle this like adults, okay?”

“Okay, fine.” Cage raises a fist, and so does Jack.  _ Oh you wanna go rock-paper-scissors for this? _ He knows he probably doesn’t have a prayer of winning against her.  _ Just hope my eye doesn’t start twitching again. _

“Not exactly what I had in mind,” Mac mumbles. 

Jack wonders if it’s possible to out-think the mind reader.  _ The way I play, it’s second nature to switch to some other thing after doing the rock fist three times already, and scissors is the easiest to change to. But if she plays by making each of the shapes in turn, the next logical progression is rock again. But she’ll know that, so she’ll choose something else on purpose to compensate, because she’ll expect  _ me _ to go to the easiest one. _ So paper is probably his best bet... _ Or will she anticipate that...now I just sound like Vizzini in  _ The Princess Bride. _ I’m way overthinking this. _

Jack watches as Cage’s fist pounds into her palm twice closed, and in that split second he knows exactly what his plan is. Jack pounds his fist into his palm three times and then flattens his hand into paper. Cage’s hand stays closed in a rock fist, and she sighs.  _ Yep, she was counting on me doing the normal scissors thing. _

“Give me that thing.” He snatches the soccer ball back, and then kicks it. It sails through the air in a smooth arc...and bounces off the wall a good five feet from the window. 

“My turn, Beckham,” Cage chuckles. 

Jack hands it over without a fight, he got what he wanted.  _ The only thing better would be to break the phone completely, but that would kinda defeat the purpose and it would probably mean Mac would take mine. _

“Okay, Riley, you’ve got eyes inside, do your thing.”

“I’ve managed to hack their camera and turn on the video streaming. I’m hijacking the feed and sending it to your phone now.” 

Jack pulls out his phone and glances at it. There’s a heavily bearded man sitting tied in a chair, with two men flanking him and a third somewhere in the shadows. He holds the phone out to Cage. “Hey, that look like your guy?”

“That’s him. That’s Roger.” Sam sounds absolutely elated. 

Then the man in the corner moves a bit more into the light,  and Jack nearly drops his phone.  _ It’s him. What the hell? _

“Riley, zoom in on that guy in the back.”

“The one in the funky hat?” Bozer asks. 

“Yeah.” The video enlarges, and there’s no mistaking it. “That's the Ten of Spades.”

Mac frowns, and Jack decides it’s his turn to give a complicated explanation for once. “When they sent us to Iraq in '04, they gave us all decks of cards so we could memorize the faces of high-value targets.” They’re still burned into his brain. “Iraqi Minister of Defense was the Eight of Hearts. Saddam was the Ace of Spades, and that barrel of monkeys right there, he was the Ten. Tahir Ali al-Tikriti. A commander in the Iraqi Republican Guard and the last uncaptured war criminal of Saddam's regime. We've got everyone else in the deck, but the Ten of Spades was never found.”

“If we play our cards right, we can get him right now.” Sam smirks a little. “That’s an interior room, reinforced walls, no natural light source.”

“Those plans showed a room in the basement, right in the center. That could be it.” Jack says. “Now that we have proof of life, we can get a strike team.”

“Guys, you don’t have time for that.” Riley cuts in. “There’s a livestream scheduled for two hours from now. I think they’re going to kill Marton on live video.” 

* * *

Jack glances at his watch. “Well, this ain’t good.” He knows that’s the understatement of the year. “Looks like if we wanna keep your friend alive, we’re gonna have to breach this place ourselves.”  _ Damn, it really does feel like a DnD campaign. _

“Sam, how would you do it?” She’s the one who’s been storming imaginary castles with Riley every week.

“Optimally, I’d wait until cover of darkness and parachute in. But we don’t have a plane, or parachutes…” Mac starts to object. “And we don’t have time.” 

Jack glances at the plans again, and when he taps on the image that shows the basement room, trying to zoom in, a couple lines of red text pop up on the screen.  _ Damn technology; I hate things that pop up like this. _ And then Jack sees something that might be exactly what they need. 

“Hey, uh, Riley. My Turkish is a little rusty. Can you translate that text?”

“All right, it says, ‘The foundation was repaired in 1998 using the beam and base underpinning method’.”

“And that helps us how, exactly?” Cage asks. 

Jack is grinning, the beginnings of a plan taking shape. “My uncle Tony used to be a house flipper. He’d buy a crappy place, fix it up, and sell it, before doing that was a big thing. I helped him for a couple summers. One house we worked on was over a natural aquifer, and we used that method to reinforce the foundation. It’s used when the ground beneath the building is unable to bear the load.”

“Riley, can you switch to a radar view?” Mac asks. He’s catching on. 

“Are those…” Riley trails off.

“Tunnels.”

“Actually, they’re catacombs. The Romans built them everywhere,” Mac says. “That’s our way in.”

“The closest entry point is three miles away,” Sam points out. “Are you going to just walk in there, grab him, and walk out?”

“Oh no, we’d never make it,” Mac says. “I’m going to swim.” 

“But the catacombs aren’t flooded.”

“Not yet.” Mac glances around, looking at the building guards. “But we’re going to need a big distraction up top to cover what I’m doing down below.”

“Consider it done. Bozer and I are en route.”

“You need to stay put,” Jack says. “Mac needs you on comms to direct him through the creepy Indiana Jones maze down there, and Bozer’s not getting anywhere near sharp objects for a while.”

“I’m coming,” Boze insists. “Mac needs my help, that’s what I’m here for.”

“Okay, fine, but you’re gonna be recon only, got it?” Jack is not going to be responsible for losing Mac’s best friend. 

“Have fun stormin’ the castle,” Riley says.  _ I think it is gonna take a miracle to get us in there _ .

* * *

WAREHOUSE OUTSIDE ISTANBUL

SAM’S BARTERING SKILLS ARE STILL INTACT

Sam pushes open the warehouse door and is instantly hit with an overpowering smell. She pulls the scarf she just purchased a little further over her face. It smells like horse and smoke and sweat, but it’s better than the chemical odor permeating the room. “I was able to get enough clothes for Jack, Bozer, and I from a local farmer.” She sets the pile on the table. “How's it going here?”

Mac looks up from something cylindrical, waving greasy hands. “I'm just finishing up with this thing.”

“What is this?” Sam’s seen his work before, but usually only small scale. The car today and now this...it’s impressive. 

“It's a, uh, diver propulsion vehicle. Well, it's my quick and dirty version of one. It's how I'm gonna get through the three miles of catacombs so quickly.” She watches him take a deep breath before reaching for a screwdriver.  _ Yeah, I’d be worried too. _ Just the thought of being down there in underground caves full of water is giving her the jitters. 

She follows her nose to the source of the smell. “Jack, how's it coming over here?” 

“Oh, well, it stinks to high heaven, but it's getting really thick.” He holds up a spoonful of pale goop. “Look at that.”

“Thick is good. That means it's ready.” Mac walks over and takes the pail from Jack, starting to scoop half the contents onto a piece of newspaper. 

“That looks like C4.”

“Or at least the MacGyver version of it,” Jack says. “Trust him to know how to make something that goes boom out of whatever he sees laying around.” Mac sets the paper-wrapped goo in an old paint can. 

“Jack, I need your watch.” Jack sighs, but unstraps it. 

“As long as it’s not my phone, man.”

Mac fiddles with the watch, then attaches it to the can and hands the whole thing to Jack. “Jack…”

“Don't agitate the explosive. Yeah, I got it.”

“No. It's not shock sensitive. I was just gonna say, "hurry”.” Mac taps a crude drawing he’s made that shows the nearby aquifer and dam. “You have to put it right in the middle here, between the two I-beams.” Jack nods and rushes off.

Mac dumps the rest of the explosive into another can and wraps that one tightly in plastic bags, and then he and Sam climb into the car she ‘borrowed’ and drive off to the spot where they’ll be able to access the catacombs through the sewer system. 

When they pry the cover off the manhole, Cage flinches.  _ It’s so dark down there. _ It’s too much like night. Like an empty road, lit for a second by blinding oncoming headlights until everything goes dark. Until she wakes up in the seat of a car with her legs pinned and water rushing through smashed windows.

She shakes off the flashbacks.  _ That was always my weakness in the field. Ops that had anything to do with water.  _ She vividly remembers SAS swim and dive training. Being held underwater, panicking, scrambling desperately to get free and get out, forgetting every training move in a surge of blind fear. 

She remembers the first desperate gasp, the water flooding her lungs, smothering her scream. And Roger instantly letting go, snatching her arms, pulling her to the surface and out of the pool, pounding her chest until she could breathe again and wrapping a towel around her shoulders, sitting with her until the shakes stopped. 

_ It got better, thanks to him. _ She knows she was lucky to have such a patient mentor.  _ And if all goes well, pretty soon I’ll get to thank him in person.  _

There’s a sound in the bushes on the side of the road, and Sam pulls her gun and aims at it. “Whoa, hey, just me.” Jack steps out of the trees, hands raised. “Your Campbell's Chunky Boom Boom's in place.” Jack grins. “And should be going off right about now.” 

“Perfect. Now I just need you to help me get this equipment down here.” Mac sits down on the edge of the hole, dangling his legs in.” 

“Mac.” Jack puts a hand on his shoulder. “It should be me that goes in there, man. There’s some bad dudes down there, and…”

“And if anything goes wrong, I’m just gonna have to improvise. I’m the only one who can fix this thing,” Mac taps on the propulsion vehicle’s housing, “if it breaks down. I’ll be fine.” 

Sam checks her watch. “We've got 30 minutes till they live-stream Marton’s murder. Are you sure that's enough time?”

“It's gonna have to be. That shaped charge is gonna punch a hole in the dam and it's gonna flood the catacombs. Then after about 20 minutes, that pressure's gonna widen the hole.”

“Then the whole damn dam comes down.” She swallows.  _ Unrelenting, uncontrollable chaos. That amount of water flooding through an enclosed space... _

“Good luck down there, Mac.” And then he drops into the darkness. 

* * *

Mac tries not to think of all the ways this could go wrong.  _ The oxygen hose could break or snag on something. The propulsion unit could break down. I could have put too much explosive in the can and  not have enough to get to Marton. And that could also mean the dam weakens faster than expected. I could get washed away and drown down here somewhere.  _ And that doesn’t even take into account the terrorists with guns who would very much like to kill him if they see him.

He’s got the improvised oxygen mask on, and he’s kneeling at the edge of a pit that is now filled with water. It’s getting higher, starting to lap at his shoes. Mac shivers. The tunnels are cool already, and the water, coming as it does from the bottom of a holding aquifer, is icy. He takes a deep breath and drops through the hole into the murky depths. 

The initial shock of cold makes him tense and take an even deeper breath. He tries to steady himself, the oxygen still needs to last for the return trip too. He flicks on the propulsion vehicle and feels it drag him along. He has to be careful not to slam into the walls or go too far up and catch his back or head on the uneven ceiling. 

By the time he gets to the location Riley says should be his exit point, he’s shivering uncontrollably. He uses a tiny bit of the explosive to blow a hole above him, lifts his little vehicle out, pulls off the oxygen mask, and glances around the tunnel. It’s almost colder out of the water than in it. 

“Mac, you okay?” He can hear the relief in Riley’s voice when he answers in the affirmative. “You're now in the corridors right beneath the compound. You see a tunnel leading off to the east? 137 paces down that hall puts your right beneath Marton’s cell.”

He starts off, rubbing his arms.  _ I can’t wait to get out of here. _

“Okay, you’re right underneath him.” Mac stops, unwrapping his can of homemade C-4 and glancing up. 

“H-how big did you s-say that r-room was?” He hates that she can probably hear his teeth chattering in his trembling voice. 

“Ten-by-ten. But Mac, I can’t tell where exactly in the room Marton is. If you breach the wrong spot in the floor…”  _ I could kill him. Yeah, I know. _ He may have gotten the charges dropped for the death of George Ramsay, but the thought of killing anyone with what he does is still terrifying. 

“N-not gonna happen. I’m br-bringing the floor t-to me.” Mac carefully rolls the explosives and marks off the room dimensions above him. His hands aren’t shaking now, he can’t afford that. 

“Okay, Jack and Cage have their attention. Time to do your thing.” 

Mac sets off the explosives and ducks, covering his head with his arms and dust and stone and shards of tile rain down. The whole floor collapses into the center of the space, and Mac blinks at the sudden light. He runs to the single occupied chair and pulls out his knife, cutting away the gag and ropes holding Marton in place. The second he does, he finds himself pinned to the wall with an arm across his throat. Marton may be haggard and emaciated, but his reflexes are still impressive. 

“Roger Marton?” Mac chokes out. 

“Who are you?” The man asks, or rather growls. Mac knows the sound of a disused voice, he heard it echo around him in solitary far too often. _When there’s no one to talk to, you kind of don’t see the point in doing it at all._ _Talking to yourself just makes you feel like you’re losing your grip on your sanity even faster._ He’d bet that’s what the past two years have been like for Marton. 

“A friend of Samantha Cage’s.” 

The arm relaxes. “Sam’s here?”

“Yeah, she’s just outside; keeping them distracted.”

“I should have known it was her when I heard the commotion,” Marton chuckles. And then Mac hears a door fly open and bullets ping off the stone around them. 

“Run!” 

* * *

Jack watches with concern as Bozer loiters around the entrance to the building. He’s the least likely to set off warning signals; he’s not a seasoned field operator but that means his face isn’t common knowledge. After hearing about Cage’s blown op in Singapore, Jack’s just a little paranoid.  _ Scorpion may be gone, but there’s still a lot of people probably floating around, who slipped through our fingers and joined up with other nasty little groups. _ And seeing as one of his own experiences in Turkey was less than stellar…

Bozer steps aside and speaks into his comms. He’s way too obvious about switching his on, Jack’s going to have to give him a crash course in field stealth at some point. “Front entrance has three guards, all armed. Two on the roof, two in the courtyard.”  _ Okay, and a crash course in how to to sound exactly like you’re in a cheesy spy flick.  _

“Got it. Stay put and stay safe, Bozer. We don't need anybody else putting any more holes in you, man.” He hears the exasperated sigh from the other end of the line. 

Sam breaks cover first. She walks up to one of the guards and asks him something in Turkish. The next second, she’s yanking him over the stair railing, grabbing his gun, and popping off the two guys on the roof before they can get a shot off. 

“Hey, leave a few for me!” Jack scolds jokingly as he rushes over, taking out another guard on the way. “You just got back in the field, aren’t you supposed to be taking it easy or something?”

She shakes her head. “Maybe, if you can’t keep up, you’re the one who needs to quit field work, Jack.”

He glances over the railing and takes down another guard. “There, now who’s not keeping up?”

“Still you!” Sam takes aim and shoots one more guard, as Jack does the same. “That’s all the front accounted for. Almost too easy.” She vaults over the railing and starts to run up the stairs to the door. 

Jack grabs Cage’s arm. “We just need to keep their attention.”

“We’ve come this far, the Ten of Spades is  _ right there. _ ” Sam gestures to the  _ hisar _ . “Roger would want me to finish the mission.”

“But the Ten isn’t the mission.”

“He is now.” She steps through the door. “Cover me.” Jack sighs.  _ Guess we’re doing this. _ He hears a muffled rumble from below them and grins.  _ Mac’s blowin’ stuff up again. Good for him. _

Riley’s voice comes through the comms. “Guys, Mac’s got the package and he’s on his way out. I’m coming to you to back you up.”

“Sounds good. Let’s get him.” Jack slams a fresh clip into his gun.  _ He’s not getting away from me again.  _

* * *

Riley stashes her rig in the van they’re using as a command center and checks her sidearm mag.  _ Fully loaded and one in the chamber. _ She’s noticed that she obsesses about that now. Ever since the Phoenix siege, she’s found herself at the practice range more often, and she checks every once in a while, with a desperate compulsion, to make sure her gun is loaded and her backup mag is with her.

What happened with Horn in the server room shook her more than she’ll admit.  _ I could have died, easily.  _ It was sheer luck that his shot missed her.  _ I can’t count on getting that lucky again. _

She passes the bodies on the steps and portico, and flinches slightly. They do what has to be done, but it’s still a little chilling. 

She’s sure Jack and Cage have cleared the front rooms already, and pulls out her phone to see if she can ping their location and meet up with them. There’s a faint scraping creak from somewhere to her left, and she spins around just in time to see a bookshelf now ajar and the muzzle of a gun leveled at her head. 

_ Breach warning alarms screaming, server vent fans whirring, no time to think, no time to brace for impact. _ She breathes and swallows and the sunlit palace room is back. But the gun’s still very much there.

She recognizes the face behind it. The Ten of Spades himself.  _ He must have hidden in a secret room. Jack and Cage walked right past him. _ She really, really hopes Jack doesn’t blame himself too much when he realizes what happened. 

“Get on your knees.” Riley doesn’t move. She’s going to die on her feet, because this man is going to shoot her anyway.  _ If he wants to kill me, he’s going to have to look me in the eyes and do it. _ “I said, kneel!” The gun jabs toward her. 

“Not to men like you.”  _ Jack would appreciate the Marvel reference.  _ It’s not half bad, as last words go. She thinks a fictional old German man would agree. 

And then there’s a cracking thud. Riley blinks involuntarily, flinching, but the Ten is falling to the floor, and Bozer pops up from behind him, grinning. 

“It was Mr. Bozer, in the living room, with the candlestick.” His fake British accent is atrocious, and Riley chuckles hysterically. 

“God, I’m glad to see you.” She wants to hug him but she’s not too sure she can move

“ _ Avengers, _ Riley? Really? Not even Bruce Willis?” Bozer shakes his head. “Jack’s gonna be disappointed.” 

“It fit the context.” 

“Wait, does that make me Captain America then?” 

“Not even close.” And then the doors burst open and Jack and Cage rush in.

“What the hell happened?” Jack asks. 

“We found your guy,” Bozer says. Riley glances down at her hand. It’s shaking, and her gun is gripped in a white-knuckled grasp. 

Jack notices at the same time she does. “Riley, what happened?”

“He got the jump on me. I froze,” she admits softly. “Boze saved my life.” 

Jack pulls her into a hug. “It’s okay, kiddo, it’s okay.” She can hear him starting to choke up, and she wraps her arms around him and holds on tight. 

“We’ve got him, let’s get to exfil.” Sam, ever the practical one, speaks up. She grabs one of the Ten’s arms, and Jack gets the other, and all of them hurry out to the van. 

Sam drives, and Bozer rides shotgun. Riley sits in the back with Jack, trying not to look at the man on the floor in front of them. Jack is definitely starting to freak out, he’s systematically disassembling his sidearm. 

“Jack, what’s wrong?”

“It’s my fault,” he mumbles.

“What are you talking about?”

“If that son of a bitch shot you, that would have been my fault,” Jack says quietly. “The Ten was my last Delta mission. And we lost him.” He looks down at his hands. “He should never have been there. We should have got him back in ‘04. I should have found him in there. He never should have been able to get close to you.” His voice is shaking slightly, and Riley sees the faint shimmer in his eyes. 

“No, none of that is your fault. The way you told it to me, he never even showed up where he was supposed to.” She wraps her fingers around Jack’s. “You did everything you could. And I’m still alive. I’m still here.”

“I couldn’t save you,” Jack says, almost too softly for her to hear. “I’m sorry.”

“Your job isn’t to save me, not anymore.” She’s a big girl now, and even though she knows Jack will always worry about her, she did sign on for this. She did agree to risk her life, just like he does. “Now, your job is to save Mac.” Which is exactly what they’re going to do.

“I’m never gonna stop having your back, you know that, right?”

“So it’s true. No matter how old you get, your parents still never stop seeing you as their little child.”

“And no matter what level agent you are, I’m never gonna stop seeing that sassy little trainee with a chip on her shoulder and a penchant for getting shot at.” Jack puts his arm around her. 

“Oh, I think that’s because I learned from the best.” She smirks and punches his shoulder. And then they’re grinding to a halt outside the manhole, and Riley can hear something very ominous. A low, rumbling roar.  _ Please, Mac, please be here. _

* * *

Mac flinches as stone shards spatter around them and a burning pain creases his leg and side.  _ Getting shot doesn’t hurt less no matter how many times it’s happened.  _ Fortunately, he can tell none of them are worse than a bad graze.

He tosses Marton the oxygen tank and mask. “Secure this around your face, make sure it seals.” He jumps when the man hands it back. 

“I’ve trained for years to increase lung capacity,” Marton says. “I can probably last long enough.”

“I didn’t come all this way for ‘probably’.” Mac shakes his head. “Take it. If we have to, we can buddy breathe.” And then there’s more ricocheting bullets, and both of them plunge down into the water. 

It’s just as cold the second time around. Mac kicks to add his own momentum to the propulsion engine, he just wants to get out of here as fast as possible. When they’re about halfway there, his lungs start to burn. He doesn’t want to risk passing out and floating off down here, so he taps Marton’s leg. The man seems to understand, he pulls off the mask and pushes it into Mac’s hand. He takes a few grateful breaths of air before handing it back.

When he sees the light filtering down to them, he switches off the propellor and lets the little vehicle sink.  _ It got the job done.  _ He pulls himself out of the hole, next to Marton. There’s over a foot of water on the floor now, and it’s rising fast. They wade to the center of the tunnel, below the hole, and look up. He can hear something rumbling, he really hopes it’s Jack and the team en route. And then he hears brakes screech, but the low roar doesn’t stop.

“What is that?” Marton asks. The water is to their knees now. 

“The dam breaking.” And then Jack’s head appears in the hole. “Hey guys, the swimming area is now closed; please exit the pool.” Mac chuckles and reaches down, linking his hands to give Marton a step up. Jack grabs the man’s arms and pulls him through the hole, then turns back. “Hey Mac, how you gettin’ up here, man?” The water is lapping at his waist now. 

Mac’s about to suggest detaching the strap from his knapsack and using it as a rope, but he’s not sure it will be long enough. And that roaring is getting so much louder. He’s out of time to think, out of options. He has to get up there, now, or he’s going to drown.

Mac glances at the wall, then at the opening fifteen feet above his head. He can do this.  _ When I was a vigilante, I got really good at parkour. It’s really all physics; mass and force and trajectory. It just hurts if you get it wrong. _ He glances at the wall again, doing the calculations in his head. And then he jumps up at the wall and shoves off, reaching up for Jack’s lowered arms. 

For one horrible second, he thinks he missed.  _ Did I gain more weight than I think I did? _ And then his hands are clenched around Jack’s straining, taut-muscled wrists, and he’s halfway up and out of the hole into the sunlight. 

And then the water hits him. It feels like a semi truck slamming into his hips and legs. Mac swings sideways, his already damaged side colliding with the rough edge of the hole. He can’t muffle the cry of pain, but the water is drowning it out anyway.

The flood drags powerfully at his legs. Mac can feel chunks of stone that the water’s pulled loose tearing at him. He knows the math, that the pressure from the amount of water flowing through those catacombs is going to be stronger than his grip on Jack’s arms.

“Mac, don’t you dare let go of me!” Jack is shouting to be heard over the rushing water. Mac guesses his grip is probably loosening; he’s freezing and tired and there’s no point in fighting the inevitable...is there?

“I’m not letting go of you. So don’t you dare let go of me.” Mac’s arms are cold and going numb, but he can feel Jack’s rough, calloused fingers tightening around his wrists. “Come on, kid, we’re gonna get you outta there, but you gotta help us out, okay? Just hold on, a little longer.” 

He can feel himself rising, inch by inch. The smell of exhaust hits his nose, and he realizes Jack is actually attached to the truck now, that they’re creeping it forward to add to the pull to get him out of there. The water is spilling out of the hole now, and that’s helping a little, but there’s still that forward suction as most of it rushes on through the channel the catacombs are making for it. 

The water lets go, with a roar that Mac could swear sounds angry. His ankles bang against the lip of the hole, and then he’s out, lying in the spreading pool of water on the road. Jack kicks free of the straps holding him to the truck and pulls Mac out of the way of the water, onto the sun-warmed asphalt. 

Mac’s exhausted and freezing, and all he can do is lie there in the road coughing and panting and shivering. Jack sits down beside him, and Mac feels the man wrap his arms around him and pull Mac to his chest. He curls into the warmth. 

“Here, kiddo, I’m gonna let go of you for a minute, but I’m not going anywhere, I promise.” Jack does, and Mac wraps his arms around himself, missing the warmth and contact. And then he feels Jack wrapping something warm around him, the longsleeved disguise shirt he was wearing over his t-shirt. It’s still holding plenty of Jack’s body heat, and Mac huddles into it gratefully. Jack pulls him back in close, running a hand through his hair and then putting his arm around Mac’s side as he helps him to his feet. “We’re goin’ home, okay?” 

Mac nods.  _ Yes, yes we are. All of us. _

* * *

THE PHOENIX FOUNDATION

HOME SWEET HOME

It feels good to be back in the War Room. Riley listens to the post-mission debrief in a blur. She adds her own part mechanically, it feels distant, remote, like the whole thing happened to someone else. She knows the reality is going to crash in hard later. But for now, she’s a lot like that aquifer dam. There’s only a small leak. She figures she can keep it together until this is over. 

“This was not a sanctioned operation, and Oversight has asked me to remind you that there will be an official warning, which is going into your permanent records.”

“Dude, I have so many of those on my record, I lost count,” Jack says. “Patty’s just getting a power trip, isn’t she?” 

“Do you want to say that to her face, Jack?” Matty’s finger hovers over the hot call button on screen. Patty’s in Washington right now, smoothing out some final details of personnel transfer with the CIA. As it turns out, apparently keeping Matty permanently means lots of paperwork.

“No, I’m good.” 

Matty turns to Sam. “Cage, you’ll be interrogating our friend the Ten of Spades. Since this wasn’t an official operation, we have no obligation to turn him over to any government until we see fit.” 

“I’d kinda like to talk to him too,” Jack says, and Riley sees the raw rage in his eyes. 

“We’ll save that till last, Dalton.” Matty glances at him; Riley knows she heard the whole thing. “I think Cage will learn more from him without you giving him a broken jaw.” 

“Just his legs, Matty?” Jack asks, a wheedling tone slipping in. She shakes her head firmly. 

“All of you pulled off a miracle out there,” Matty says. “Thanks to you, Marton has been reunited with his family, and a holdout terror cell is decimated.” She nods to them. “You’re all free to go.” Everyone heads for the door, but Riley hangs back, tugging Bozer with her. 

“I don’t think I really got the chance to thank you properly for what you did back there.”

“Awww, it was nothing.” Bozer glances at the floor, scuffing his shoe. “I just didn’t want to lose a good friend, that’s all.” 

She hugs him. “Well, it was pretty impressive. Points for stealth, even  _ I  _ didn’t see you there.” 

“Stealth  _ is _ my biggest advantage. And my stellar good looks,” he strikes a pose. “You’re talking to Stephen Windwalker, the greatest Mage of the seven realms.” 

“You overheard Cage talking about DnD, didn’t you.” She chuckles. “Don’t tell me, the real reason you saved my life was to try and score an invite to the campaign.” 

He shrugs and raises his eyebrows. “I mean, if you’re offering…”

“We’re definitely going to be playing tonight.” She knows she’s not going to be able to sleep. Sam probably isn’t either, not after all this. They might as well put the extra adrenaline and after mission jitters to good use. Fighting imaginary monsters instead of real ones. 

“Awesome.” He grins. “You know, if you give me time to swing by the house, I can come in full cosplay.”

Riley just shakes her head. “Sam’s a great DM. If you ignore the fact that all the monsters she makes up are based off of Australian wildlife.”

“She can actually make Australia scarier? Wow.” Bozer laughs, and Riley smiles.  _ It’s good to be back. _

* * *

MAC’S HOUSE

Jack thinks he might actually feel more at home here than in his own apartment.  _ And not just because I spent a three weeks here after the whole Murdoc thing, before we went off globetrotting. _ There’s something welcoming about the house, something that says it’s a place to sit down and stay a while. He’s slightly selfishly glad Mac didn’t decide to move.

_ He told me he was considering it. Said he didn’t want to live in a place where all his memories were of being lied to. _ Jack could respect that. He’d even offered to let Mac move in with him, if he wanted. But in the end, Mac seems to have concluded that his house is owned and paid for and he might as well use it. Plus, he does have some good memories here, even if they’re all mostly recent. 

Jack grabs a beer from the tempermental fridge and wanders out to the deck. He could smell the smoke when he got out of the car, it’s another bonfire night. He gets the feeling that’s a pretty normal occurrence. Mac seems to have a truly disconcerting love of watching things burn. 

Mickey barks, he knows Jack, and he also knows Jack always comes with treats. Jack fishes one out of a pocket and tosses it to the dog, who gulps it down and then runs up to nuzzle his hand, hoping for more. Mac’s leaning toward the fire, probably trying to chase away the last of the chill from the catacombs. He looks up.

“Brought something for you too.” Jack holds out the pizza box. “Thought you might get jealous if I only ever brought treats for the dog.” 

Mac opens the box and grins, grabbing himself a slice. Jack made sure he ordered the kid’s favorite kind, the one with no mushrooms, extra green pepper and bacon, and the cheese in the crust.  _ A little more expensive, totally worth it.  _

He pulls out another one and waves it at Jack. “Want a piece?”

“Thought you’d never ask.” Jack reaches for it, but Mac slaps his hand. 

“Uh, no, sit. Stay.” He’s grinning. 

“Don’t you know you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?” Jack asks. He spins the pizza box toward him, but overestimates the force, and it topples to the ground, pizza slices spilling everywhere. Seeing his chance, Mickey rushes in, snatches two in his mouth, and retreats. 

Jack apologizes and starts quickly picking up the mess. “Three-second rule, right Mac?”

“You know that’s not really a very scientific…”

“I’ve followed it all my life, and I’m not dead yet. How’s that for experimental test subject?” Jack asks. The last two words come out more as “tmst smgged” because he’s shoved the last slice in his mouth. 

Mac just shakes his head and takes another bite of his own slice.

“Where’s Bozer?” Jack asks. 

“Still at Riley’s. I guess they’re fighting a three headed kangaroo dragon.” 

“Dude, I thought I was the only one who messed up animal names.” Jack shakes his head. “Don’t you mean a Commodore Dragon?”

“It’s technically Komodo Dragon, but no. According to Boze, it looks like this.” Mac holds up his new phone,  _ we’ll see how long this one stays in one piece, _ to show Jack a hand-drawn sketch of something that looks like a cross between a nightmare and a marsupial.

“Don’t tell me, Sam invented that.” 

“Yep.” Mac takes his phone back, and then glances at his wrist, frowning. 

“You still workin’ yourself up about that watch?” Jack shakes his head. “Mac, I’m tellin’ ya. There’s no shame in calling it quits. I mean, come on, every agency’s done their best to find this guy. I know you’re the smartest kid I know, but that doesn’t mean you gotta win every time.” He wants to take that watch away and throw it somewhere in a dark hole.

“I know. But I think it got water in it back there in the catacombs,” Mac says. “It’s stuck at the time from then.”

“I wonder how that happened,” Jack mumbles sarcastically.  _ Everything was waterlogged after that.  _ He had to hold onto a shivering, close to hypothermic Mac all the way back to the airfield where the jet was standing by. And Mac took almost twice as long as he did in the locker room shower after they got back, although Jack hung around and waited for him.  _ Wasn’t like I was gonna be inconveniencing Matty, she’s the one who insisted Mac and Cage and I couldn’t come in the War Room until we stopped smelling like a goat farm. _ And he knows being alone or with strangers in the locker room makes Mac jumpy, with good reason. 

“I’m gonna see if I can open it up and dry it out,” Mac says. “Might be able to fix it; Dad...James...was always taking it to pieces to work on the movements and stuff.” He walks back into his room, and comes out with a handful of tools and a small board with a shallow depression in the center. “He left all this stuff when he left,” Mac shrugs. “I couldn’t really bring myself to part with it.”

Jack nods. Mac sets the watch on the board, pulls out a couple thin tools, and starts putting pressure on the back. Jack watches; he mostly wears digital watches now but he has an old one of Pops’s that he saves for special occasions. The battery ran out a year ago and he’s never gotten around to taking it to a shop.  _ Bet I could bring it over and Mac could work his magic on it. _ Jack smiles. He trusts the kid implicitly now. Whether it’s with his life or Pops’s watch.

“What the…” Mac whispers, grabbing a pair of tweezers and pulling something out of the back of the watch. It’s damp, but it’s a piece of glossy photo paper. And the kid in the image is pretty recognizable. 

“Hey, is that you?” Jack asks. “Dude, I think that haircut is worse than the current one.”  _ I forgot those atrocious long bangs were ever in style _ . 

“This was taken right before my tenth birthday.” Mac glances at it. “He must have had it since he left.”

“So he put it in there for you to find?” Jack glances at the small, faded photo. “It’s gotta be some kind of clue, right?”

“I don’t know.” Mac turns the tiny scrap of paper over; if there were any words on it, they’ve been washed away. “But I’m going to find out.” 

 


	2. Muscle Car+Paperclip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter is going to require a few notes.
> 
> 1-This is a complete overhaul from the original episode. The only thing I kept was the title and a subplot, since in this universe there's no way this is Riley's first solo op. Hopefully you enjoy what I did instead, I definitely had fun with it...
> 
> 2-This chapter is a little bit dark, nothing like 107 but there is threat of/attempted non-con, so I'm tacking on a warning for that for this chapter...

### 202-Muscle Car+Paperclip

20,000 FEET ABOVE NORTH KOREA

AND FALLING

“Any time you wanna close that door, Riley, that would be great!” Jack yells, before one of the thieves slams him against the side of the plane.

“Yeah, I’m trying, Jack, but this is an eight-hundred-million dollar military aircraft designed specifically to be unhackable! It’s not exactly user-friendly!” She’s going as fast as she can, because she’s watching Mac and Jack and Cage getting pummeled. _Eight guys is not good odds._ But if she doesn’t get this plane under control, they’re all definitely going to die, because a plane crash is even worse odds.

Mac’s doing something to a supply crate inside the cargo bay, but one of the guys slips past Mac and Cage’s defenses and tries to pull him away. Mac reacts violently to being grabbed from behind, kicking out and pushing himself off the crate to fall on his back on top of the man who attacked him. The guy grunts, breath knocked out of him, and Mac slams an elbow into the side of his head, gets back up, panting, and goes back to work after taking a couple shuddering breaths.

Riley’s phone rings. _Please don’t be Matty. Not right now._

It’s not Matty. It’s worse.

“Mom?”

“Riley? Oh my God, you’re never going to believe this.” Diane sounds thrilled.

“Yeah?” Riley tucks the phone against her ear and continues typing.

“I got offered a promotion!”

“That’s great.” Riley knows she sounds flat, but she’s currently trying to save her entire team’s lives, so she can’t really muster the enthusiasm.

“They want to promote me to branch manager, in Los Angeles. Apparently the last manager was skimming funds,” Mom says casually. “I’d be right there with you, wouldn’t that be great?”

“Um, yeah, totally.” There’s a reason Riley left home. _Mom is the most nosy person on planet Earth, and I’ve worked...and lived...with people whose jobs are gathering intelligence._  Having to spend large amounts of time with her makes Riley skittish. She’s always afraid of Mom realizing the truth.

Another goon gets past Cage and comes for Riley, clearly aware that she’s trying to foil their plans. She sets down her phone and rig and sweeps her leg under this guy’s, dropping him like a rock and knocking him out with a swift punch before grabbing up her phone and rig again. “Sorry about that.”

“What was that thud? Are you out of breath?”

“I’m working out, Mom.”

“Oh, nice.” But Diane doesn’t take the hint. “You’re happy about this, right?”

Jack gets tackled by two guys at once and goes down hard, and Mac stops whatever it is he’s doing to wade into the fight himself. Riley flinches as he takes a knee to the ribs.

“Yeah, I am. That’s great.”

“Good, because I accepted, and they want me to start on Monday.”

“What?” _That’s way too soon, she doesn’t have time to find a place...wait…_ “Why did you tell them you could start so soon?”

“I really wanted the job, and I thought if I told them I could start right away, they’d pick me. I was kind of counting on being able to stay with you till I find a place of my own, you said your roommate moved out, right?” Riley glances at Sam, who’s taking on one of the bigger guys, slamming him repeatedly into a cargo rack and trying to tangle his hands in the netting. “It is okay, right? It’s just for a little while, until I find my own place.”

The plane shudders, tilting, and Mac gasps as the crate he’s returned to working on slides toward him. Jack yanks him out of the way before it pins him against a wall, and then goes back to punching people. “Mom, it’s not a good time, okay? Can I call you back?”

“I’m sorry if I upset you, I didn’t mean to.” _Of course she assumed I’d be fine with it. Riley’s always fine, right?_

“It’s just a lot right now, and I really am busy, okay Mom? We’ll talk later.”  She hangs up and types faster.

Jack takes a fist to the face and staggers. He and Cage are both starting to tire. There’s only three guys left standing, but they’re tough to take down.

“Hey Mac, whatever you’re doing do it faster! What _are_ you doing anyway?” Jack asks, spitting out a mouthful of blood.

“I think you’re gonna like this!” Mac yells. “Get them closer to me!”

“This whole time we’ve been trying to avoid that!” Sam shouts.

“Just trust me!” And clearly they do. Jack and Cage both fall back, toward Mac and whatever he’s doing. And then Mac jumps forward, holding a couple carabiners that Riley can see are attached to the netting on the crate. He latches them through the guys’ belts and then slams his foot against something on the floor. “Jack, Cage, get out of the way!”

The crate slides backward and out the door, dragging the three remaining thieves with it. Riley watches as it drops, and then a network of parachutes pops up, lifting it into the air with the three men dangling underneath.

Her rig beeps, and suddenly, the plane control systems flash green on her screen. “I have controls!” She immediately types in an autopilot sequence, and closes the rear door. Their descent levels out, and then they start to climb again. Riley keys in the coordinates of the closest aircraft carrier.

“I’ll tell Matty we’ve got the plane.” It’s sad, she muses, that explaining this absolute debacle of a mission is actually better than giving her mom that call back she promised.

* * *

PHOENIX R&D

ON PINS AND NEEDLES. LITERALLY.

“Hang on, Cage. Almost done.” Bozer mumbles around a mouthful of pins like he’s in a fifties homemaker advertisement.

“If you stab me with one more of those, I will break every bone in your hand.” Sam's threat is as cool and calm as if she’s telling him what time it is.

“Right, right, right. There we go...all set.” Boze steps back to admire his work. At least, that better be all he’s admiring. “Your new and improved evening wear. Custom ballistic Kevlar woven right in.” He turns to Riley, who’s equally stunningly outfitted, and his gaze lingers a lot longer, Sam notices with a small grin. _He’s still totally into her._ “You’ll be the bulletproof belles of the ball.” He clears his throat. “Have I mentioned how dashing I look in a tux?”

“Nice try, Bozer, but Matty wants me and Sam to run this op alone. She thinks the ambassador is more likely to want to talk to a couple unaccompanied women.” Riley smoothes the short skirt of her black and silver dress. Cage’s own red one is ankle length, but it’s made up for by a long slit that comes to the middle of her thigh, and a daringly low-cut neckline. _We’re definitely going to get noticed. Which is exactly what we want, for once, tonight._

Bozer hands them both small clutch purses perfectly designed to conceal Riley’s small handgun and Sam’s knives.

“By the way, this is really good. Where'd you learn to sew like this?” Riley asks, still admiring her dress.

Bozer leans back on his desk, smiling in that odd reminiscing way. “Tenth grade. Ayesha Goldfarb. She was Juliet. I wanted to be her Romeo.”

“Are we talking real life or high school production?” Sam asks.  

“Both. They cast that doofus Aaron Schwartz instead. So I volunteered for the crew to be near Ayesha, and the only department that still needed help was costumes.”

And were you star-crossed lovers?” Riley says.

“Nah. She wound up dating the guy who played her dad. They're married now.” He glances at Riley _again_ . _Yeah, he’s totally hoping to hit on her. But she’s also totally blowing him off._ There’s a lot of subtext here that even they aren’t aware of.

“Worried, Riley?” Bozer asks. Clearly he’s managed to at least pick up on _that._ It’s been obvious since they walked in here for the fitting, if he hadn’t noticed Sam might think about checking his vitals.

“It’s technically my first mission in command of my own team,” Riley says.

“What was your first?” Bozer asks innocently.

Cage sees Riley flinch. _Her first was the Bishop op._ No one needs a reminder of how badly that went down. _She felt like what happened to Mac in there was on her head, because Thornton left her in charge while she tried to straighten things out in DC._ Mac never blamed her, but that doesn’t mean Riley doesn’t do it enough herself.

“It was sort of an emergency, so it doesn’t really count. Plus,” she lowers her voice slightly. “It was on a need to know basis. And you don’t need to know.”

“Come on, I can handle the truth.” Riley just shakes her head, and Sam knows who’s right. _No, Bozer, you can’t._

* * *

MAC’S HOUSE

THE BEST PLACE TO SPEND A SLOW DAY

Jack leans on the counter, cleaning his gun and waiting for Mac to get out of the shower after his morning run with Mickey. Jack’s still a little winded; both Mac and his dog are infuriatingly athletic. Jack’s already cleaned up; half his house is in the guest room and he hasn’t bothered to take it back to his place yet. _Military regulation shower times are a hard habit to break._

He grimaces as he straightens up; he still has a hell of a lot of bruises from that plane fight. The bathroom mirror told him they’re starting to turn a lovely shade of chartreuse. _I’m sure if I thought about it for a minute, I could tell you the color code for that particular tile hue._ Jack’s color vocabulary is surprisingly broad, thanks to his civilian cover as a tile salesman. He’s shocked Riley multiple times by complimenting her choice of nail polish tint with the most accurate description possible. He likes randomly surprising people by rattling off the big words he pretends he’s too dumb to know.

His phone buzzes. He pulls it out and groans. It’s from Matty.

**War Room ASAP. You and Blondie.**

“Mac, we gotta go to work!” Jack yells, and then realizes Mac walked into the room while he was looking at the text, and is standing next to him wearing one of Jack’s t-shirts and a paint-stained pair of jeans. “Oh, sorry man.”

“I’m not deaf. Yet.” Mac turns back to his room.

“She said ASAP dude.”

“I’m trying to decide if she’ll be madder if I show up late, or looking like this.”

“She called on our day off. Her problem.” Jack shrugs. “Hey, she oughta be glad she didn’t catch us sweaty.”

Jack was really looking forward to spending at least one day not getting shot at, beaten up, or falling out of the sky. _And not having to worry about any of the above happening to Mac._ So he thinks his less than stellar attitude upon walking into the War Room can be forgiven.

“Thank you for showing up on such short notice,” Matty says, and Jack notices that she doesn’t comment on his scowl or Mac’s choice of clothing.

“So why are we here?” Jack asks.

“A smuggling gang working across the border that just jumped from small-time to a major player. The authorities believe they’re also a street racing crew based out of LA; a few of the vehicles were IDed and match LAPD reports of illegal races. Originally, they were drug running for La Ola cartel. But lately they’ve switched gears, and now they’re transporting guns across the border to supply the Mexican portion of the cartel. There’s a major turf war going on with the Los Diablos around Mexico City.”

Mac flinches. Jack knows the kid’s last act as a vigilante was blowing up one of La Ola’s gun warehouses. _It’s been over three years and nothing’s changed. These guys are still doing the same things they were when Mac was still on the streets._

“The ATF and the DEA have been unable to get a lead on the locations of the races, which is the only time these smugglers will show themselves in a group. The only thing we know for sure about this case is that a major shipment of a new German-made assault rifle has gone missing; and that the pattern fits with the other thefts traced to this group.”

“And they brought this case to us?” Mac asks. “It doesn’t sound like a normal Phoenix op.”

Matty pull up some images on the screen. “The CIA is tracking the shipment of G-36 rifles stolen last week. They’re highly lethal and easy to slip past the normal detection methods.”

“Oh yeah, I know these bad boys. The firing rate is incredible. There’s hardly any recoil, too. Made of fiberglass and reinforced plastic, so they have a low metal content that scanners can be fooled into missing. Light, strong, extremely deadly. Those are a nasty piece of work,” Jack says, glancing at the video. He’s seen these in action. Letting them hit the streets in the hands of cartels would be a disaster.

“Okay, once you’re done nerding out, Dalton, can we continue?” He nods. “The CIA can’t legally seize the guns since they’re on US soil, and they’re handing off the case to us. The other agencies are in a jurisdictional war, and the CIA is trying to keep this out of their hands, so they don’t blow the whole thing before they ever make a bust.”

Jack’s beginning to get the idea of how this is going to go. _We need to get the locations of those races, and proof that these guys are the smugglers..._ This is an undercover op.

“The only way to get in with people like this is to be one of them.” Matty says. “And given your pursuit driving record, and the fact that you own two vehicles that fit the profile of a street racer…”

“You picked _me_ for the undercover.” Suddenly Jack is a lot more enthusiastic about this mission. _So all I have to do is score an invite to their illegal races, get them to trust me, and see if I can con them into offering me a cut of the profits if I’ll drive for their smuggling operation. And then we have all the evidence we need to take them down._ “Oh hell yeah. _Fast and Furious,_ baby.” Jack grins.

“Let me be clear, Jack, you are not to break the law any more than strictly necessary for this operation. If you get arrested for illegal racing, the Phoenix will take care of the charges, but I think it goes without saying that _I_ will be making sure there are proper repercussions.”

“This is the perfect time to break out one of my favorite cover personas.” Jack grins. “There’s only one guy with the panache for street racing.”

Matty looks like she wants to facepalm. Clearly, she remembers this one.

“Who?” Mac asks innocently.

“Nicky Stokes.”

* * *

HOLLYWOOD HILLS

JACK IS DEFINITELY ENJOYING THIS TOO MUCH

Mac can hear the pounding bass before the car even turns in the driveway. Jack has the speakers cranked way up, and he’s currently blasting “You Shook Me All Night Long”. Mac frowns when Jack pulls around to the front of the house and he gets a look at the new plates the GTO is sporting. **STOKE’D.**

 _Jack really enjoys these undercover ops. Although I don’t know that there’s much ‘undercover’ about this situation._ He shakes his head when Jack parks and steps out. “You even have a vanity plate? For a cover ID’s car?”

“It’s called method acting, Mac. Ask Bozer about it sometime. You have to be fully immersed into the character.”

Mac rolls his eyes; Jack has entirely too much fun with these cover IDs. “You do realize that the apostrophe wasn’t necessary?”

“Yeah, but it looks way cooler.” Jack grins. “Nick’s a fan of over-the-top. Which makes him perfect for a street racer.” Mac slides in and Jack hands him the packet he picked up from the Phoenix, with everything Mac needs for his own cover ID. He doesn’t have a ready-made stash of them like Jack, so he has to go with whatever the techs working to create backstopped covers decide on. He opens the packet and then sighs.

“I think Matty’s punishing _me_ for _your_ choice of cover IDs.”

“Okay, how bad is it, let me see.” Jack reaches for the license Mac is trying to shove into his wallet. “Dude, _Tripp Coley?_ Yeah, she’s definitely mad. Or she’s seen you fall over your own feet and decided to make a really painful joke.”

Mac sighs. _I know, I know, I’m a klutz._ He’s already almost spilled coffee on his shirt this morning.

“Hey, at least she gave you a good picture. One time, I was going undercover in Madrid, and she picked the photo that made me look like I had a double chin and a unibrow.” Jack shudders. “It was a dark time.”

“When we see Matty again, I’m gonna ask her to stop punishing me for your life choices.” Mac slides the license in his wallet and accepts the bagel Jack hands him. _He always gets me food when he picks me up._ Granted, that’s Mac’s own fault, because of the _one_ time he told Jack that he broke the toaster trying to make it better and it burnt the bread and set off the fire alarm, so he hadn’t eaten. _Now Jack just assumes I never eat in the morning._

Mac tries to make sure none of the crumbs or cream cheese get anywhere in the car. _The first time Jack brought me food, he made me stand outside the car until I finished. And then he started just insisting I make sure I used the takeout bag as a plate. Now he doesn’t even say anything._ Mac’s pretty sure he’s the only one allowed to eat in the GTO, Jack scolded Riley just a couple days ago for bringing in a bag of Doritos. _I guess those are messier, with the powder all over them, but still._

“Hey, if you really hate the name, we could go back to me calling you Carl’s Jr.”

“Please don’t. And anyway, it wouldn’t make sense with this cover name.”

“Why not? Your middle name could be Angus.” Jack smirks evilly. “Now there’s a good cover name. ‘Tripp Angus Coley’.”

“If you keep talking, I’m gonna sabotage your car so the wheels all fall off and it catches on fire in the first race.” He enunciates every word with vicious clarity.

“As cool as that would look, I’m gonna pass.” Jack pulls out onto the road.

“Where are we going?” Mac asks.

“LAPD arrested a few of these racers before. Only one address is still current. A guy by the name Julian Ramone, in Westlake.” Jack takes a corner just a little too fast. “Street racing is like Fight Club. The first rule is, you don’t talk to anyone who isn’t part of the in group. Doing undercovers in organizations like this is always tricky. They don’t trust outsiders and they’re not very accepting of a new face. That’s why no one can get the race locations. They don’t post flyers around town saying ‘hey, we’re going to be holding an illegal race at this time, on these roads’.”

Mac nods, he read the briefing too. “So showing up in person is going to help?” He hopes Jack doesn’t plan on interrogating this guy into giving them the location. _I guess we’ll do whatever we have to to keep those guns from hitting the streets, but I don’t want to hurt anyone unless we have to._

“There’s only one way to get the attention of a guy like that,” Jack says. “Well, two, but I don’t really have the body of a pin-up poster.” He chuckles and slips into a narrow gap in the traffic. “So this baby’s gonna have to do.” He runs a hand over the steering wheel.

The dumpy little apartment building in Westlake reminds Mac a little too much of the one they tracked Pena...or now, the Ghost...to last year. They’ve heard nothing about him since that failed bombing and that police ceremony last year; according to Jack’s old EOD friend Charlie, the Ghost has gone to ground. Mac hates that there’s never anything new to tell the man’s wife when he visits. _She still isn’t going to get closure, not until we find out something to help._ But Annabelle is growing fast, and she’s incredibly smart. Mac really hopes he can figure out a way for her and Valerie Lawson to meet, he thinks those two would get along like a house on fire. _That’s always such an odd expression. I’ve seen a lot of buildings on fire, and usually there’s nothing that good about it._

“Do you think we missed him?” Mac asks.

“Nah. He works nights at a chemical plant as a janitor, and then he has a noon to eight shift three days a week at a car repair. He should be getting ready to leave for that job right about now.” Jack glances out the window. “Dollars to donuts it’s gonna be the dude in the tricked out Camaro right there.”

Sure enough, a sleek red muscle car is pulling out of the carport next to the apartments. It looks out of place in the shabby neighborhood. Mac guesses the car is probably Ramone’s one luxury in life.

Jack puts the GTO in gear and pulls out after him, getting in the lane beside the red car. He weaves in and out of traffic to make sure that when they get to a red light, he can pull up directly beside the other vehicle.

Jack rolls down his window, leans out, and yells. “Hey! She all looks, or she got anything good under that hood?”

Ramone glares at him, and the light turns green, allowing them both to pull away. Ramone pushes his car a little faster, now his rear bumper is even with Jack’s front tire. Jack honks at the slower car in front of him and gets a middle finger out the window in response. He revs the engine and Mac sees the Camaro inch forward.  

“What are you doing?” Mac asks.

“Getting myself invited to a race.”

“By pissing him off?”

“By challenging him.” Jack revs the engine again.

“If we get in trouble for racing here…”

“It’s part of the job. We have to score an invite, and the only way to do that is to impress him.” Mac tries not to think about what happens if they get arrested. _They’ll find out my cover IDs don’t match my prints._ He’s still not used to not having to watch his every move and worry about that ankle tether that was part of his original parole terms. He doesn’t want to go back to that. _Penny would be really disappointed._  He only has a few more monthly meetings with her now.

“Chill, dude. It’s way too congested to actually race. I just want to make him interested.”

The next stop light is just turning red as they approach. Mac’s afraid Ramone might run it, trying to put some distance between them, but he puts on the brakes and stops right beside Jack’s car again. _He got arrested for illegal racing three times; I saw his sheet. No wonder he wants to actually obey the rules._ Mac is legally allowed to drive now, on probationary status only, but he hasn’t gotten behind the wheel yet. LA traffic is stressful, and he’s scared of accidentally breaking a law or even getting into an accident that isn’t his fault. _I don’t know what I’d do when the police showed up._ He’s sort of afraid he’d be one of those people who just starts crying. _I really hope that wouldn’t happen, but I’m just scared._ Even when Jack is driving, seeing a police car makes him nervous.

This time, when the light turns, Jack gets the lead. He’s almost a car and a half in front of Ramone when they get to the garage where the guy works. It’s a big place, buzzing with activity. Almost twice as big as Weathers’s. This garage has ten bays and a separate building for less-invasive work like oil changes and tire maintenance.

Jack pulls in and parks, and when Ramone gets out of his car, he walks over. Mac notices Jack’s stride has totally changed. It’s not the carefully balanced, cobra-ready-to-strike way the former Delta usually carries himself. This is loose and free and more than a little cocky. Mac follows him, considerably less confidently.

“That’s a sweet ride, man,” Jack says. Ramone just glares at him.

“What were you trying to pull out there?”

“I’m bored. This city is so _slow_.” Jack glances toward the traffic crawling by on the street. “I’m used to running her flat out on the open road.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have moved to LA.” Ramone tries to move past them, to the garage, but Mac steps in front of him, trying to look more intimidating than he feels. _Just do what Jack does._ He crosses his arms and plants his feet, wishing he was just a little taller. _Those couple inches make a world of difference._ And the fact that Jack just somehow exudes authority. Mac feels like a golden retriever next to a Rottweiler or German shepherd.

“Yeah, but I heard they’ve got a great street scene.” Jack glances at the car. Mac can see, now that they’re closer, a few long scrapes in the paint, some dents and places where it looks like a tire’s rubbed up on a curb hard. _This car has been taken care of religiously. That’s new damage; or it would be repaired and covered up by now._ Clearly a few arrests haven’t stopped Ramone’s addiction to speed and danger.

One of the mechanics steps out of the building, wiping his hands on a blue shop towel. “Hey Ramone, these guys making trouble?”

“They’re looking for some action, Juli.” Ramone is clearly one of the underdogs here; Mac can tell he’s deferring to this “Juli” for what should be done about them. _Probably the fact that he keeps getting caught keeps him on a low rung in the group. Most of these guys would take pride in being able to outrun any cops after them._

Apparently street racing isn’t too different from any other gang. Juli nods to Ramone, who slips past Mac and heads for the office. Then he turns to Jack, clearly sizing him up as the one closest to his rank. The two square off, and Mac’s a little concerned there’s going to be a punch thrown.

“You mess with one of my guys, mohawk, you mess with me.” Juli’s voice bites.

“Hey, if he can’t play with the big dogs, he shouldn’t act like it. I was just testing his ride.” Jack shrugs. “Tough to do in LA traffic. But I did beat him here. He’s probably just sore about it.”

Juli frowns and crosses his arms. “He wasn’t out there looking for trouble.”

“In a car like that? He’s asking for someone to show him up.” Jack glances at the heavily modified vehicle. “There’s no way that’s not racing mods. I’m guessing she’s got what, a 425 horse under there?”  Juli says nothing. He looks Jack’s GTO over, frowning.

“Yeah, I know the old girl don’t look like much, but I never could bear to change her up. She belonged to my pops, and what can I say, I’m a little sentimental. But she doesn’t need to look flashy to run like hell.”

“You gonna give me a name, or do I have to call my guys and have them tow you out?”

Jack flashes the guy a confident grin and holds out his hand. “I’m Nicky Stokes, and this here’s my mechanic, Tripp.”

“Julio Gomez.” The man holds out his hand. Mac flinches. _He’s the nephew of one of the big dogs in the La Ola cartel._ They’ve definitely found the right crew.

* * *

Riley’s phone buzzes while she’s finishing coding the last of the bugs she and Cage are planning to plant in the ambassador’s office. _Hey, might as well go all the way as long as we’re going to be inside anyway._ She glances at it, hoping the caller ID isn’t for her mom. It’s not. It’s Matty.

She picks up immediately. “Hi Matty.”

“You were expecting someone else?” _Busted._ Cage might be the best interrogator Riley’s ever met, but Matty can play in the same league.

“Yeah...”

“There are only three people in the world you’d sound relieved to hear me instead of, so I know it was either Diane, Elwood, or Patty you were expecting.” Matty sighs. “And seeing that Diane is the one who recently accepted a promotion in Los Angeles, I’m fairly certain it was her.”

“You’re doing running background checks on my mom? Why am I not surprised.” Riley chuckles. “But yes, she’s coming into town, and she wants to stay with me for a couple weeks while she finds her own place.” She still hasn’t listened to the voicemail Diane left her while she was getting fitted for that dress with Sam. _She’s going to be apologetic and offer to get a hotel._ Which is definitely going to guilt Riley into telling her she can stay.

“Are you concerned about being able to do your job with her there?” Matty asks. “There are a few unused Phoenix apartments we could offer; it couldn’t be permanent, but…”

“It’s fine, I can handle it. My family is my problem, I can’t ask the agency to bend over backward for that. It’ll only be a couple weeks. It’s just like any other undercover.” _Except I don’t get to go home and take off the mask. I have to put it on when I walk through my own door._

She wishes she could talk to Jack, but he’s off on an op with Mac and she doesn’t dare call him. It feels so strange to not be working right alongside him. Five years of being partners means she’s gotten used to being able to turn around and have Jack right there at her side. _He’s always been there for me, whatever I need._ She knows she’s ready for this change, that she’s more than capable of leading her own team, from a tactical and experience standpoint. But not having Jack just feels wrong.

 _He’s proud of me for making it to this point, for getting the promotion._ And both of them know that this has always been part of the plan. _Jack was supposed to train me, to turn me into a field agent as competent and qualified as he is._ But she’d always assumed that she was being groomed to take his place when he retires, not to suddenly be given command of her own team and her own missions, while Jack is still on his own.

 _I’m going to do this mission, and it’s going to go fine._ She knows she can pull this one off, it’s nothing she hasn’t done a hundred times. But Jack won’t be outside the party in the surveillance van, telling her she’s doing great, and complaining that he’s stuck in the car, and asking her to sneak him out food from the buffet.

Riley sighs and leans on her desk. _Eventually, I’ll get used to it. I’ll make it work._ But she really, really hates the thought of that.

* * *

JULI’S GARAGE

THEY’RE DEFINITELY IN THE RIGHT PLACE

Mac listens to Jack bragging up his cover ID’s track record, and shakes his head. Jack really likes selling a big story. But in a crowd like this, some exaggeration just makes him fit right in. Three of the guys who aren’t currently working on vehicles have come over to listen to Jack and Julio. It seems like this garage is actually more or less a front for the racers to bring in their cars and repair or improve them. A few normal cars are going in and out, and Mac can see some body work being done on a partially crashed Toyota at the end of the row of work bays, but there are too many modified cars here to represent the normal LA driving scene.

“How come I never heard of you, if you’re so good?” Julio leans back on his car, a sleek Dodge Charger with flashy detailing.

“Cause up till a week ago, I was burning rubber in Vegas.” It’s much easier, Mac’s learned, to sell a cover long-distance. Phones can be hijacked and calls rerouted, or informers can simply be bought off to spread whatever information is needed. Jack grins. “I got tired of winning all the time, and I heard the LA scene was impressive.”

“Hey kid, why don’t you bring that car in here and give us a look at what’s under the hood?” One of the other guys says. Jack turns and tosses Mac the keys, and he slides in. _Please don’t let me do any damage._ He’s driven so many cars into work bays that it’s nearly second nature, but he doesn’t want to do anything to Jack’s precious car.

He parks the GTO and pops the hood, showing the men the engine underneath. He’s spent plenty of time with Jack fine-tuning it, so he can talk about it just as easily as if he actually was the mechanic he claims to be. He runs through the key points quickly, size, compression, horsepower, special modifications, and then steps back to let the racers check it out for themselves.

“Come on back, have a beer and tell us everything about Vegas.” Julio claps Jack on the arm. Mac can sense the threat underneath. _They want to see if his stories check out. If he does know what he should about street racing, about people they might know in Vegas._ Mac’s seen the same thing in prison, when supposed gang members arrive. If no one from the gang they claim affiliation with knows them, there are tests, like this. To be sure they’re not a plant. Mac’s never actually seen a case of police planting an informant, it’s more of a prison urban legend than anything, but gangs are always incredibly careful.

He already knows he’s not welcome back there. He’s not the racer, these men are going to put him on an even lower rung than Ramone. _I’m just good with the engines._ He decides to really sell his cover and take advantage of being in the shop to do some work. He’s been thinking about how to make sure Jack can actually follow through on his boasts, and there are a few things he can do to the engine. _I’m not going to wreck it like I did that rental in Mission City, but I can do some things on the same concept that are less drastic than ripping out the air filter and adding hydrogen peroxide._

He’s making a few last adjustments to the air intakes, hoping they can squeeze just a little more out of the engine, when someone slams into him from behind, hard enough to jolt him into dropping the wrench.

“Sorry, I can move,” he apologizes, even though technically he wasn’t in the way. _They could have gone around the other end of the car. But they’re probably giving the new guy grief._

The man doesn’t move, and Mac shudders as he feels hips grind against him. _That’s not someone trying to squeeze past, that’s intentional._ He knows the difference all too well. And he can feel a lot more of this stranger’s body than he wants to...

“J-just leave me alone, I’m busy.” He hates, _hates,_ that stupid voice crack.

“That what you tell your friend, too?”

“I don’t know what you mean…” Mac hates how lame it sounds, because even he can tell he’s lying through his teeth. He knows exactly what this man is insinuating. Mac wishes he could say he’s surprised, but he’s really not. _Got wolf-whistled more than a few times when I was working at Weathers’s. Apparently a guy bent over an engine is some kind of turn-on._ Back then, he just laughed when the other mechanics teased him about being the one everyone brought their cars in just to get to see. _It isn’t funny anymore._

“Oh, come on, the way you were looking there, you’ve got to have some experience. You’re probably used to a private garage, aren’t you? Just you and your friend and whatever car he feels like bending you over today.”

“I-it’s not like that. He doesn’t…I’m not...” Mac protests, feeling himself start to shake. _If he does anything, Jack’s not here and these guys won’t defend me, not against one of their own._ It’s up to Mac to defend himself, and he knows exactly how well that went in prison. _I have a lot more training now, but he’s still bigger than me, and he has me pinned._

“Tells you to make sure no one else gets any, huh?” The man runs a hand down Mac’s leg, and he gasps, shuddering more and feeling tears prick at his eyes. _Please, don’t do this._ “He afraid you’re gonna find out he’s not all that great and want someone who can give you what you really want?”

Mac’s fingers find one of the socket wrenches, and he clenches his hand around it. It’s not the best weapon, but at least he’s not totally defenseless. _Please go away. Please._ He doesn’t want to get them in trouble, to risk their covers, but he isn’t going to let this man hurt him. _I don’t have to stand here and take this._ Jack would be the first to tell him that. “Leave me alone.” This time, his voice doesn’t crack.

A door slams open, and the man backs off, sliding away. Mac collapses over the engine, panting, leaning his cheek on the cool, greasy metal. He needs to get a grip, he has to act like everything is fine. _Nothing happened. I’m okay._ But the only thing he can think of is _Jack, where is Jack? He wouldn’t let that happen. Where is he?_

* * *

Jack tries to force himself to stay relaxed as he trades stories with the racers. As far as he can tell, none of them come from the Vegas scene or have close connections to anyone there, but he can’t be fully certain. He sticks to what he knows from his own research of the street racing groups there, and tries not to be overly specific. _It sounds counterintuitive, but using exact dates isn’t really a good way to gain trust. Talking about Tony Samaro wrecking on April 9th last year is too exact, saying it was in the spring sounds more natural and legitimate. Unless it’s something truly earth-shattering, normal people don’t really remember specific dates._

He laughs about crazy wrecks and shows off scars that he can claim are from driving, and swaps stories of close calls with the cops. And when he gets up for a second beer, he slips one of Riley’s wireless bugs under the table. _Bugging an office is kind of old-school, but it could still get us something._ Now that people use cell phones, it’s impossible to predict exactly where conversations about deals and illegal stuff might take place. _If Riley was here she could clone his phone and scan his emails and texts._ But she’s off running her own op, so Jack’s left to get this the really old-fashioned way. If he wants incontestable proof these guys are running guns, he needs to get them to tell him themselves.

“You’re welcome at the shop anytime,” Juli says. “As long as next time, the beer’s on you.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Jack steps outside. Time ran away from him in there, it’s almost four thirty, and the last of the normal clientele are pulling out. He wanders along the row of muscle cars, most of which have their hoods up. He admires the work, these cars are all built for as much speed as possible over short distances. But that doesn’t matter unless you have a driver who knows how to handle it.

He’s checking out the Mustang Cobra when he hears someone step up behind him.

“Surprised you’re taking the time to pretend you know what you’re looking at, Stokes.” He recognizes the voice. Hector Ruiz, one of the guys who seemed less inclined to believe he was legitimate, or at least to believe his bravado. “No one’s watching you now.”

“Clearly you are. And what exactly are you implying? That because I have a mechanic I don’t need to know how to do it myself?” He can start naming off every piece of the engine if that will satisfy this guy.

“Real racers work on their own cars.” There’s nothing friendly in Ruiz’s eyes. “I wouldn’t trust another pair of hands under my hood.”

Jack shakes his head. “Then you haven’t seen my guy work. He’s a magician with these things, man.” He glances at where Mac’s tweaking something on the GTO’s engine. “Boosted my top speed by fifteen miles per hour and stopped the shimmy she was doing at 120.”

“But he doesn’t drive?”

“Nah. Got in a nasty wreck a couple years ago, kinda messed him up.” Jack taps his head. “He won’t get behind the wheel anymore.”

“Seems to me like you’re taking advantage of a tragedy,” Ruiz mutters, and Jack doesn’t like the look in his eyes. Mac’s bent over under the hood, and Jack’s suddenly aware of what that position would look like to someone intent on one thing. “You sure your pretty boy mechanic isn’t actually real good at revving a different kinda engine?”

“That ain’t how it is.” Jack wants to take a swing, but he can’t afford to let his temper get the best of him.

Ruiz shrugs, but his eyes are glued to where Mac is still leaning over the engine. Jack shudders. _You come near him, and I’ll put you in the ground, mission be damned._

He purposefully walks over to Mac; he needs to be right there, making sure no one else is going to act on any ideas they might have about Mac’s reasons for being here.

“You about ready to close her down and hit the road?”

“Learn anything?” Mac asks. He’s just finishing with the carburetor he’s been tuning up, wiping his tools on a grimy rag and putting them away. There’s grease stains all over his face, his hands are black, and he looks even younger than normal.

“Nothing important.”

“What was he going on about?” Mac says, sounding way too flippant to be casually asking. _He heard everything, but he wants to know if I’ll tell him._

“He thought I was keeping you around for a lot more than twistin’ some bolts.” Jack shakes his head. “I made it real clear that wasn’t the case. But I’d stay away from him if I were you.”

“If I avoided every guy who looked at me like that, we’d never get anything done.” Jack flinches at how casually Mac says it. _He just knows that way too many people are going to see him first and foremost as an object. And even worse, he’s accepted it._

“Gimme their names.”

Mac looks like he wants to, there’s something shaken under the composed front he’s trying to put up. But then he shakes his head. “J-Nick...we can’t afford to start something. Not now. I’m fine. As long as they think you’ve got some kinda claim, they’ll probably leave me alone.” Jack rubs a hand over his face. Mac is right. As long as they don’t push things, don’t challenge anyone else’s assumptions, it’ll probably be okay. But there’s always that chance that it won’t be.

Jack steps into his car, and just as he’s about to pull out, Julio steps out of the building, holding his cell phone. _Yep. He made me feel like we were all good, and then he made his calls._ Jack knows the man was hoping he’d let his guard down, if this was a trick. But apparently Phoenix’s backstopped cover is holding up, because Juli’s grinning.

He doesn’t say a thing. _Better he thinks I don’t know he was digging. That it wouldn’t make an ounce of difference to me._ He can’t afford to make the guy wonder why Jack is so concerned that his story needs to check out. Jack swings out of the lot and into the beginnings of rush hour traffic. _Well, that went well._ The sooner they can put this case and these guys in the rearview, the better Jack will feel. He’s definitely going to be keeping a much closer eye on Mac from now on.

* * *

Bozer can tell something’s wrong when Mac walks in the door. He doesn’t immediately drop to his knees and start tussling with Mickey, and he jumps when Bozer walks out from around the kitchen island.

“How did it go out there?” He asks.

“Jack’s got a whole bunch of new friends. He’s in, so it’s all good.”

“It’s not all good, you look...well, you don’t look good.” Bozer is for once at a loss for a good description. Mac is pale and shaky and there’s a hunted, haunted look in his eyes.

“I’m okay.” Mac shakes his head.

“Mac, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.” Boze puts a hand gently on Mac’s shoulder. “Come on, man, you gotta tell me what’s going on.”

“It was just...at the garage…” Mac shudders. “I’m used to it, it’s not important.”

Bozer knows exactly what he’s talking about. He’s known since Mac walked through the door, because that look in his eyes is the same as after Bishop prison, as after Murdoc. “It is important, Mac, and no one should _ever_ be used to it.” He worried about Mac all through high school; but then at least Bozer could protect him. When Mac got sent to prison, he was all alone. And now he’s out there in the field, where Jack is supposed to be watching his back…

“You didn’t have to let them do something to keep your cover, did you?” Boze doesn’t care what orders were, Mac shouldn’t be subjected to that. _I can’t imagine Jack letting it happen, though. He’d break every rule in the book if he had to, to protect Mac._ Bozer’s at least willing to accept Mac risking his life when he has Jack to watch his back.

“No, and nothing happened. It just startled me.” Mac shrugs, a forced casualness that doesn’t match the strain in his eyes and in his tense shoulders.

“And Jack…” Boze is surprised no one is missing limbs after something like that.

“Jack doesn’t know. I can’t afford to mess up the op by complaining; it’s my problem and I’ll handle it. If Jack knew he’d want to pull me, and I can still do this. I’m fine.” Mac pointedly steps away and into the kitchen, clearly he wants this conversation over. _It’s not fair that this always happens to him._ Bozer knows Riley talks about missions that make her want to take three-hour showers afterward, but she’s also been trained to deal with people’s treatment of her, to either fight back or use that interest against them. Mac got thrown into a terrible situation without any plan for how to survive it.

“You made a pot pie?” Mac’s smile is totally genuine this time. Bozer grins.

“Yep.” Bozer isn’t able to make as many carefully fussed-over meals as he used to, but his chicken pot pie requires minimal effort and lasts at least a couple days unless they’re feeding a group. _And we had to do something with that leftover chicken._ “Should be almost done. Hey, don’t touch the oven.” Bozer shoos Mac away, waving his hot pads mock-menacingly. “I swear, all you have to do is put a finger on it and things burn.” He glances inside. “If you want to help, feed Mickey so he’s not underfoot the second I take this thing out.”

Mickey stays out of the way, thankfully, and Bozer’s perfectly browned pot pie makes it to the table in one piece. Not that that lasts long. They’re both on their second slice before either of them actually feel like talking again.

Bozer didn’t want to dump his own complicated life on Mac while his friend was still dealing with issues of his own, but Mac seems to be over at least the initial trauma of the day, and Boze isn’t going to be able to keep this news a secret any longer anyway. “Thornton’s talking about sending me to official training. Apparently there’s a new session starting at the academy next month.”

Boze isn’t sure how he feels about this. _I guess everyone thought I wouldn’t need training, because all I wanted to be was a lab tech and I only went on a few supposedly low-risk missions. And then I got stabbed right there in the middle of the Phoenix._ Apparently they’ve realized that no place is actually safe and he ought to have at least some idea of how to protect himself.

“Really?” Mac grins. “What did you do? She hasn’t even threatened _me_ with that.”

“I guess she wanted me to go when I first joined, but then she had to leave and Matty never did anything about it.” He shrugs. “It doesn’t sound so bad. I guess it’s ‘everything you need to know about being a spy’ somehow condensed into four weeks. So like that film school seminar thing I did but way more intense.”

“But she didn’t say anything about me?” The worry in Mac’s voice is so heartbreaking. _He’s constantly afraid of making a mistake and being punished for it._ Bozer knows that’s got to be a byproduct of James’s brand of shitty parenting. _I’m with Jack when it comes to that whole mess. Mac’s better off leaving that guy to someone else. Because even if he does find him, how is he gonna face down the man who controlled his whole life for ten years, and managed to leave permanent damage?_ Boze doesn’t want to think of Mac coming face to face with that abusive jerk again. _All James will do will be tear at the scars he’s left and reopen old wounds._

Bozer shakes his head, at the very least he can reassure Mac that he hasn’t done something unforgivable. “Nope. Sounds like I’m the only one going. I guess she figures if you’ve spent almost a year in the field already and haven’t died yet, that there’s probably nothing they can teach you you don’t already know.” Mac’s years as a vigilante probably count for something too.

“The problem is, the academy’s in Virginia. So I’ll be there a whole month, and you’ll be here by yourself.”

“I’ll try not to burn the house down while you’re gone.” Mac chuckles.

“Oh, no. I am going to make enough pre-cooked meals to last you the whole month, and all you are doing is popping them in the microwave. I’ll even make sure none of them have foil on them.” Bozer shakes his head. “You are not touching the stove, the grill, or anything else flammable while I’m not here.”

“It’s not _that_ bad.”

“Mac, you burned a pot of _boiled noodles_ last week.” He still doesn’t know how that happened. Apparently Mac let the macaroni boil over, and didn’t notice until the whole pot of noodles were scorched to the bottom of the pan and setting off the smoke alarm. _I shudder to think what would happen if he tried to make more than one thing at the same time._ “At least have Jack or Riley over if you’re going to attempt to make anything yourself. Then at least someone will be there to help you put out the fire.” _And will probably have ordered takeout in advance._

“A month won’t be bad.” Mac helps himself to more of the food. _He’s finally eating like a normal person again._ Bozer had been worried about him after that mission where he had to work with Murdoc. _He just stops eating when he’s stressed out, and it’s never good._

“Well, now I know you won’t starve, but we still have a few problems. We’ll need to find someone to look after Mickey while I’m there and you’re on missions.” Mac nods.

 _This worked fine when I had a semi-normal schedule at the Phoenix._ But if Boze is going to be spending a month in training, no one will be home to let Mickey out. And he doesn’t really want to ask Mrs. Schwartz to do it; the grandmotherly old woman would insist it was no problem at all, but she _did_ have knee surgery this year and Bozer would hate for the dog to injure her. _Mickey’s got a lot of energy._

“I’ve got an idea.”

Mac pulls out his phone, and when he calls, the person who answers is clearly audible, even though he doesn’t have the speaker option on. “This is Penny, hey how’s it going, Mac? Do we need to reschedule again?” _Matty is the only other person I know who has a phone voice like that._

“Penny, how would you feel about watching a dog for a few weeks?”

* * *

JULI’S GARAGE

NOT A LOT OF GOOD MEMORIES HERE

Jack apologized nonstop in the car after Mac finally broke and told him what happened in the garage. _But there’s nothing he can do about it. We need to keep these guys happy if we want to get proof they’re running guns._ And Mac doesn’t even know who it was that attacked him. He can’t tell if that’s better or worse.

He’s not sure how he feels about going back to the garage again today, but he knows that the faster Jack makes friends with these guys, the more they’ll trust him, and the faster they’ll be willing to cut him in on the gun running. And once they do, the case is over.

Mac makes sure the car is parked in the end bay of the garage, so no one has an excuse to push past him for anything. He’s jumpy, but he tries not to flinch every time someone walks by. They’re mostly chatting in Spanish amongst themselves, but he has a decent grasp of several different dialects from listening in on cartels, spending time with Carlos, and from prison. He can tell some of them are talking about him, and it’s not anything he really wanted to hear.

He tries to tune it out and focus on working on the car. There isn’t really anything he actually needs to do, Jack keeps this car purring like a kitten, but staying busy means he doesn’t have to think about what these guys think of him.

When he hears footsteps coming his way, he straightens up abruptly, knocking his head on the hood and wincing at his inescapable clumsiness. _That always makes me look like an even easier target_. But it’s not one of the men. It’s a girl probably a couple years younger than him, in grease-stained coveralls. He vaguely remembers seeing her working on a Honda yesterday, at the far end of the garage.

“Guess your friend got the okay to play with the big boys. Wondered if you were gonna be coming back. I’m Melina.” The girl pushes strands of her dark ponytail out of her face.

“Tripp.” He holds out a hand and then thinks better of it, he’s been digging through the engine all morning. She grabs it anyway and shakes it, her own hand is equally filthy.

She glances at the GTO’s engine. “Heard Jorge was giving you a hard time yesterday.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Mac turns back to the engine.

“He’s just a big bully. You fight back, he’ll leave you alone.” She grins. “Next time you see him, take a look at his left cheek. I left him a little something to remember me by. He hasn’t tried to touch me since.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

“He and Hector Ruiz and Diego Rojas are trouble. They’re just gross pigs.” She spits. “But Ruiz is the one you really need to watch out for. He’s not all talk.” Mac has the feeling she’s speaking from experience.

“And you still work here with guys like that?” He doesn’t think he could stand it. _If this wasn’t an op that I know will be over soon, I’d dread coming here every single day._ He already does, but he just knows it’s not permanent.

“My sister is Juli’s girlfriend. After our mom died he gave me the job here so I could stay in our apartment.” She shrugs. “It’s all I’m good at, really. I wasn’t smart enough to go anywhere else, and doing this gives me money in my pocket and lets me wear something other than skimpy dresses and leather thigh-highs.”

Mac knows the neighborhood isn’t great. He spent plenty of time in Westlake as a vigilante and saw hookers dressed just like Melina is describing. _A lot of girls either lose the family’s provider to the drug wars, or they get in with a guy who’s part of a cartel and start getting turned out to bring in even more money._ He’d always pitied them, when he saw them. Now, it’s an even more visceral sympathy.

Melina goes back to the car she was working on, a lime-green Challenger that’s clearly one of the racing cars. But this one looks like it’s been doing more than street racing, there’s a thin film of dust all over the car and the tires are full of stones and caked sand.

Melina reaches inside and turns the key, and then engine cranks over but growls to a stop. _Sounds like it’s not getting fuel..._ “Damn it!” She sighs. “This one’s shot. I can’t figure out what’s wrong with her.”

“There’s no gas getting to the engine,” Mac says.

“I know. I replaced every inch of the fuel line. There wasn’t a break anywhere, but it still won’t run.” Mac looks from the engine to the tires. _There was something that used to happen to the older cars during some of the races in Mission City._ The ones that got beat around a lot and took underbody damage sometimes got holes in the line that runs from the outside of the car to the gas tank.

He slides down underneath the car and instantly sees the problem, a gouge right where he expected it, in the pipe. It looks like the car banged over a rock or kicked up something nasty, and it left a gash.

“You’ve got a hole in your filling pipe down here. Looks like a bunch of sand got kicked in, and it got driven anyway. Probably wrecked your injectors at this point. You’re gonna need to flush the whole system and replace anything the sand got into.”

Melina makes quick work of removing the injectors and checking them, and she looks fairly impressed to realize he’s right. “How did you know what to look for?”

“I’ve only ever seen that on dirt track racers,” Mac explains. “Used to work around those growing up.” _That’s a lot of sand run up in that engine. Wonder what they were doing to get it that clogged?_

It looks like he’s just found one of the cars they’re using to run across the border. He commits the license number to memory; he’ll tell Jack when he comes out from talking with the guys. Mac gets the feeling that the men in the back room are the ones who are the top dogs. It doesn’t sound like Melina knows anything about what they’re really doing with the cars; she clearly didn’t know how this one had been damaged. _They probably only let a few trusted people in. Jack’s going to have to work hard to be one of them._ He wonders how long it’s going to take to get them to trust him.

He tries to ignore the looks he can _feel_ directed at him, and the conversations he hears that some of the men don’t even bother to try and disguise from him. _I don’t know how much longer I can do this._ He can fight back, if they try anything, but it’s almost more painful just to listen, because all the memories of prison keep flooding back. _I wish I could make them stop. But I can’t afford to ruin our chances here._ It’s possible that sticking up for himself wouldn’t hurt their covers at all, but he doesn’t want to risk making the wrong person angry. _They might tell Jack to leave. Worse, they might ask him to let these guys do what they want to me._ And he knows Jack will refuse. _He will. He would never let them do that to me._

He slumps against the side of the car in relief when Jack walks out less than fifteen minutes later. _We can leave now, it’s gonna be okay._ Julio is smiling and clapping Jack on the back, clearly he’s a little buzzed from the beers. Jack seems perfectly sober. _He was the one who had to buy all of it today._ Mac grins just a little.

Julio waves his hand toward the car, and Mac can just vaguely hear him say something to Jack. “You’re a lotta talk, Stokes, but I wanna see this baby in action. Saturday, ten p.m. at the corner of Grand and the second alley. Then we’ll find out just how lucky you are, Vegas.”

“Looking forward to it.” Jack grins and gets in his car, revving the engine more than necessary as they pull out.

Mac waits until they’re on the road to let out a shuddering sigh of relaxation. One more day, and this is all over.

* * *

WAR ROOM

THERE ARE FEWER PEOPLE HERE THAN RILEY IS USED TO

It feels odd to be doing the pre-mission briefing herself. It feels even odder to be doing it in front of only two people, Sam and Matty. The mission itself is straightforward, they just need to get the access information for the Chinese ambassador’s offshore bank accounts to prove he’s being paid off by an arms dealer to cover illegal shipments of high-grade weapons. But Riley fumbles her information twice in the fifteen minute briefing, and forgets an important piece of the plan until Cage asks a question about it.

She knows she messed up, but Matty for once says absolutely nothing. When she leaves, and Riley starts packing up her rig to get ready to leave, Sam walks up to her. Riley knows that look, it never means the conversation is going to be a comfortable one.

“Riley, what’s eating you?”

“Nothing.” Riley can be professional. She can put the mission first.

“That’s your mom’s name? I thought it was Diane,” Cage says casually. _First Matty, now Cage, I can’t get away with anything around here._ She told Jack about the whole thing via text last night, and she knows the situation is as uncomfortable for him as it is for her. But these separate missions don’t leave them much time to talk. “You clearly aren’t comfortable with the idea of her moving in with you.”

“It’s just…”

“I know what you’re going to tell me. That she could compromise everything. But be honest with yourself, Riley, that’s not the real reason you hate the idea of living with her.”

Riley raises an eyebrow, she knows exactly what’s coming.

“You think if she moves back in, you go back to being Riley Davis, your mother’s little girl.”

Riley nods, sighing. “Every time I came home, she made me feel...like a child. I couldn’t tell her the truth about what I do for a living, so she doesn’t realize how many risks I take, how many times I’ve almost died. So she still just asks me to load the dishwasher and take out the trash.”

“And that bothers you.”

“I feel like she can’t see me.” Riley shrugs. “But what really bothers me is that I’m okay with it.” She sighs. _It’s easy. It’s easy to pretend, to act normal. But it’s a giant lie. Mom doesn’t know a thing about the real me. She knows a ghost. Someone who doesn’t exist anymore. And somehow, I’m totally fine with letting that go on._

“You think because you need to lie to her about your job, she doesn’t know the real you anymore.” Sam looks down at her hands, and then back up at Riley. “You’re so much more than this job, Riley. And I’m sure she has plenty of chances to see someone who’s kind, and selfless, and brave, and smart, and independent.”

Riley smiles, but she refuses to let this get overly sappy. _I can’t do emotional right now…_ “And here I thought you were going to call me messy, disorganized, and say I have infuriatingly bad taste in music.”

“I was trying to make you feel better, but if you wanted honesty…” Sam laughs. “I’ll warn her she should guard her overnight oatmeal if she wants to avoid poisoning.”  

“Remind me again why we’re friends?”

“Because I know all your deepest, darkest secrets.” Cage chuckles. “And I can either be your best friend…”

“Or your worst enemy,” Riley echoes the end, laughing.

* * *

Jack briefly sees Riley in the hall on his way to give Matty the update on the situation. She looks stressed out, and maybe it’s just this mission, but he’s got a feeling it’s got more to do with the thing about her mom.

 _To be honest I’m not too enthusiastic either. It’s been years since we dated but I don’t know if she still hates me or not. Riley says she never even talks about me, unless something about Riley’s fake job comes up._ He knows Riley’s been trying to push a reconciliation, but it sounds like Diane wants nothing to do with it. _I don’t blame her. I stood her up over and over, and it’s not fair to ask her to live around my insane work schedule._

That doesn’t mean there isn’t still a bit of a wish buried somewhere that wants to see her again and see if there’s still something there. _Riley says she hasn’t dated again since. So either I permanently scarred her for dating, or she misses what we had._ He’s afraid it’s the first option.

But he has bigger problems than his failed love life at the moment. He has an op he needs to wrap up before something really bad happens to Mac.

“I’ve got the location of the next race. I’ll need to put together a tac team to nail them before they get the chance to run. Because if we lose them, we’re never gonna catch them.”

“We still need some kind of proof they’re actually doing something illegal besides the races,” Matty says. “If we want to totally shut down the operation.”

“Can’t we just nail them for racing and figure everything else out later?”

“It’s possible, but risky. We’d rather take them down for the gun-running, if possible.” Jack knows Matty is right. Her job is to see the big picture, to be an impartial observer. And busting these guys for the real charges will mean they don’t have a chance to post bail and skip town.

“I don’t know how far I can push. These guys have lasted this long because they don’t trust easily. It could take weeks or months to get in deep enough to get that kind of information, and we don’t have that time. That shipment of G-36s is probably due to be run any day now.” _And Mac’s getting closer and closer to his breaking point._ Jack can tell he’s struggling; there’s visible relief in his face whenever they leave the garage.

He hates how often Mac is treated like this. It’s almost as if there’s some kind of beacon or a ‘kick me’ sign on him that labels him fair game for those stares and comments. _I feel like I worry about him as much as I do Riley. Maybe even more._ He’s always known the risks Riley faces out in the field, for sure, and there have been more than a few close calls, but there have also been several shattered wrists and broken noses. _Riley has a fight instinct in those situations, and years of training._ Mac tries to fight back, but the amount of trauma he’s had already usually ends up making him shut down; his reaction is to retreat and ignore. And no matter how much Jack’s trained him, it hasn’t been long enough yet for that to be muscle memory.

Jack wonders if there’s some kind of noticeable evidence that Mac’s been victimized. _Do people who think like that see the worry in his eyes when someone brushes against him?_

Matty’s phone buzzes, and she glances at it. “Looks like LAPD just picked up one of your friends, Diego Rojas, for a domestic violence call. Sounds pretty nasty; I don’t think he’s going to be seeing the light of day for a while.”

This is exactly the break Jack needed. _We’re desperate because we’re running out of time. But they’re running out of time too. They can’t store those guns forever, and now they’re down a man. I might be able to slide into his place, if I can prove I’m good enough and can be trusted._

“Matty, I’m gonna need you to hold off on that tac team. I need to make sure there’s no trouble tomorrow night. Because I’m going to get what I need to take them down.”

* * *

SATURDAY NIGHT

THE CORNER OF GRAND AND THE ALLEY

Jack doesn’t have to fake admiring the cars parked in a line down the alley. There’s everything from classic 70s to a car he swears shouldn’t even have hit the streets yet. He and Mac wander the lineup, discussing the various merits of the vehicles. Mac seems partial to a brown and gold ‘67 Mustang Fastback, but Jack can’t get past the Chevy Impala, the same year as the Fastback. It’s jet black with a red pentagram design on the hood, and Jack can see the name “Hell on Wheels” stenciled on the side. There’s a kid who reminds him a _lot_ of Mac tinkering around under the hood, and a slightly older guy leaning on the car talking to him. Jack grins, clearly he’s not the only one who’s part of a mechanic/driver team. Although these two look like siblings.

He wants to stay and talk to them, but he can see Julio and his guys clustered around their cars a little further down the line, and his plan depends on selling them one hell of a story.

He leaves Mac with the GTO. Julio’s guys seem to have a hierarchy, and clearly people who aren’t drivers aren’t welcome in the inner circle. _He likes to make sure he keeps his secrets close, that’s probably why he’s still in business._

He groans theatrically and rubs his back as he walks up. “Damn, moving into a fourth floor apartment is a bitch. Hope I didn’t throw my back out again.” _The best way to sell a lie is to keep most of the truth._ Jack’s apartment _is_ a fourth floor one. He likes the vantage points. _Spend your whole life as a sniper and an overwatch, and you like knowing you have a good view._

“Maybe you should have planned a little better,” Ruiz chuckles. “I’m sure you could have found something better than the fourth floor.”

“It was that or living outta the cars,” Jack mutters. “And at least I didn’t have a crap ton of things to carry up there. It wasn’t really a planned move if you know what I mean.” Jack shrugs. _Juli checked my cover, he’s got to have seen the faked LVPD and Nevada State warrants out on Nick_ . “I’m kinda starting over from the ground up. And that apartment was the cheapest I could get. Not even sure I’m gonna make the payments on that and the vehicle storage I rented for next month. I gotta old Shelby that I can’t keep in the apartment garages. One car per unit’s all they’ll allow.” _Another truth._ The Shelby is stored, along with the stuff Momma made him finally move out of his old room at the house in Texas, in a unit a few blocks from the apartment. He really needs to go through that someday…

“Yeah, LA’s not cheap.” Juli shakes his head. “Not even in the rough parts.”

Jack nods. “I’ll probably have to sell the Shelby. It would break my heart, but I know one of you guys would treat her right,  and I’d much rather she go to you than some collector. She deserves better than dry-rotting on display somewhere. If anyone’s interested...”

Ruiz chuckles, and Jack doesn’t like the sound. “I got all the wheels I need. But if you’re strapped for cash, why don’t you just turn out that little _puta_ you got? I guarantee you’d get more for him in the long run than for that Shelby. You’d have guys lined up to have a turn with a pretty boy like that.” His husky voice indicates he’d probably be one of the first.

Jack is ready to grab a tire iron and brain someone. “He’s not on the table. Ever.”

“He sure looks like it, the way he bends over those engines. You know, someday someone’s just not gonna ask. You might as well be getting paid for what they’re gonna do anyway.” Jack clenches his fist tighter, he can feel his fingernails biting into his palm. “You could charge pretty steep, if you wanted. You can tell he’d be worth it.”

Jack shakes his head, he thinks if he opens his mouth, he’s going to scream.

Jorge speaks up. “Sure looks like he’s good with his hands. I’d pay to find out.” Jack sees Ruiz nod. _This can’t be happening._ He can’t believe these men would pay him to hand Mac over to them.

 _I’m sure this is what it was like for him in prison. The only value Mac had to anyone was what he was useful to them for._ He can’t imagine how twisted someone has to be to see a person like that. Because he just wants to be sick at the thought that these people can even _assume_ Jack would ever treat Mac like all he is to him is a quick way to make money.

“I said, he’s not for sale. It’s the car, or nothing.”

“Think about it,” Ruiz says. “And let me know if you change your mind.” Jack shudders in disgust, but he hides it the best he can and turns back to his car. _That didn’t go as planned._ He feels sick. _I need to wrap this op up before they make good on that threat that they’ll take what they want without paying._ He is not going to be the reason Mac gets traumatized again.

He jumps at the hand on his arm as Juli pulls him aside. “Hey, man, next time they cross the line like that, feel free to give ‘em something to remember. I can’t be playing favorites to the new guy and giving my own crew a problem, but you look like you can handle yourself anyway.” Jack just nods. “You know, if you really want to unload that Shelby, I’d take her. But if you’re just looking to score some fast cash, we’ve got a nice little side business going on. Have you back on your feet in no time.”

Jack takes a slow breath. _He’s not asking about Mac. I hope._ “How much are we talking?”

“Five thousand in cash, for one night of work.” He grins. “And that’s just the starting rate. You do well, you could be making ten a run easy.”

“Sounds almost too good to be true. So what do I have to do to make that kinda cash?” He still has to pretend he doesn’t know what’s really happening here. And it’s harder than usual. _I’m letting emotions get in the way. But damn it, I don’t know who wouldn’t after that._

“Tell you what, Stokes. You show me what you’re made of, out there, and then I decide if you’re in.”

* * *

Jack winks at Mac when he comes to get the GTO. It looks like he’s excited about their chances, and Mac really hopes that means they’re going to finish this op tonight. He’s seen too many people staring at him, and one guy stood way too close and spent way too long supposedly admiring the GTO’s engine. Mac thinks he was watching something else, and he’s glad it didn’t go further. He definitely smelled marijuana on the guy.

Cars are lining up on the street. Jack’s not the first race of the night, and Mac watches the two cars that are starting first pull up, revving their engines and drawing cheers or yells from the crowd. Even most of the guys hanging around the cars still in the alley are heading that way; Mac hears several of them making bets on the winners.

 _They’re all watching the racing. It’s the perfect time to do a little digging._ Mac ignores the little Jack-sounding voice in his head that says this is a bad idea. _I’m just gonna look around a little. And if I get caught, I’ll tell them I was looking for a tool._

The cars slated for racing are all lined up along the alley, hoods open and engines on display. But there are several more in a garage that backs up onto the alley. It’s dark, but Mac can see the graffiti that’s specific to the La Ola cartel on some of the bay doors. _I wonder if this is one of the places they’re stashing guns?_ La Ola had started decentralizing their drop points around the time he got arrested. _They were trying to make their main warehouses harder to find. Only a few people knew the actual location, and they took the guns around and distributed them to smaller holding locations before they got sent out. That way, a bust was more likely to take down one of the small operations._  

He ducks inside through one of the side doors and switches on the flashlight on his phone. There are a few cars inside that are definitely legitimately under repair, but he sees a few he recognizes from Julio’s shop. _I wonder if they use these races as a cover for picking up guns._ He remembers from Matty’s briefings that most of the runs take place on Sundays. _Lots of vehicles in and out, and they always choose locations the cops are less likely to find…_

He sees the car Melina was working on, apparently she got it running again. That car was definitely one of the ones that was being used for smuggling; maybe it’s here to pick up another load.

 _Perfect._ Mac pulls out a paperclip and starts picking the lock. _For things like this the guns are usually stored in false trunk bottoms. If I can just get pictures…_ He pops the lock open and glances around inside. There’s no immediately obvious way to get into a compartment, but he’s worked on this make and model before and he can tell the trunk is definitely not as deep as it should be. He taps on it, and there’s a hollow sound.

He feels along the edges until he finds something that feels like a narrow metal strip. He tugs on it, and the bottom of the trunk swings up and open, revealing a shallow space underneath.

The compartment is empty, but Mac swipes a finger around the inside and pulls it out, noting the distinctive odor of gun oil. _They were definitely running weapons in here._ He takes a few photos of the space and then lowers the false bottom again, closing and locking the trunk. _Matty has a tac team standing by to raid the second Jack gets his intel, but I still don’t want to make anyone suspicious._

Mac bends down to look at the undercarriage. There’s still some of the sand flung up in the wheel-wells and the curve of the bumper. Any cars with that kind of debris under them are suspicious. He doesn’t have time to pick every trunk lock, but he can get photos of the plates for the cars that have sand in the chassis.

He’s at the third car in the line when he hears the door creak. He shuts off his phone’s flashlight and ducks low, hoping he can roll under the car before anyone sees him. Unfortunately, it seems like his luck is as bad as always.

“What are you doing back here?” The voice makes him jump, and he scrambles to his feet guiltily. _If I try to hide I’ll make it worse, and they’ll know something’s wrong_. Julio’s crew are standing there.

“Um...I need an impact wrench?” Mac deadpans. “Ours broke.”

“Like this one?” Ruiz holds up the impact driver sitting very visibly on top of one of the toolboxes. “Either you’re blind, _amigo_ , or you’re looking for something very different.” _Oh, this is not gonna go well._

* * *

CHINESE AMBASSADOR’S HOUSE

YES, THEY HAVE INVITATIONS

“If I hear another word about trade agreements or tariff restrictions, I’m going to lose patience and drag him off for interrogation myself.” Sam sighs, leaning toward Riley and keeping her voice just low enough to fade away under the echo of the ambassador’s speech.

“At least the food’s good.” Riley has a plate piled high with what looks like one of everything from the buffet table.

“You’re as bad as Jack. We’re here to work.” Sam glances around the packed room. There are good and bad things to being at an event like this. The good things are that it’s easy to blend into a crowd, it’s not weird to be asking a lot of questions about the people there, and if you wait a little while, people tend to drink a little more than they should of the complimentary alcohol. The bad things are that these places are crowded, hard to get out of, security can be a nightmare, and people have the tendency to freak out if someone unexpectedly pulls a gun.

Finally, the speech is over and the ambassador steps down to mingle with the crowd. It’s hard to get through, of course everyone wants to talk to him, but people tend to move instinctively when Sam and Riley come through. She wonders if they can sense that they’re dealing with someone it won’t be wise to get in the way of.

“Mr. Ambassador,” Cage says. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Anna Chase, and this is my associate Emily Grant.” She holds out the business card of the fake tech company her cover is in charge of. “I sincerely hope you’re able to make those lower trade restrictions a reality. My company depends on the components we manufacture in your country, and these unreasonable import laws are strangling our profits.”

She can tell her flattery has gotten his attention. “It is an honor to find someone who shares my opinions on trade, Miss Chase.” He glances at the room. “Very few people understand the...benefits of a less restricted exchange.”

Sam doesn’t need to be a skilled people reader to see that she’s set the hook. “I must say, your country has certainly benefited me. My company has thrived since we were able to outsource the component manufacturing.” She rests a hand with false casualness on his arm. “I’ve been hoping I would be able to manage a trip to see the factories in person, but I’m afraid that’s never been viable. My schedule is so overwhelming. Thankfully Emily is good at making sure I have a _little_ time for myself.”

The ambassador laughs. He knows the game she’s playing, or he thinks he does. _I’m sure he believes that I’m here to trade some...favors...to get him to pay off the right people to look the other way about something my company is planning._ Clearly he’s not above buying in. _I didn’t expect he would be, knowing he’s taking payments from arms dealers._

The man’s arm slides around Sam’s waist, hand too low to mean anything other than one thing, and she laughs, leaning a little closer and hating every second of this charade. _I can’t wait till I get to pull a knife on him._  

“You ought to arrange a visit. It would be well worth your time.”

“I was under the impression I was visiting your country now,” Sam purrs. “After all, the embassy is technically Chinese soil, is it not?”

“It is a small piece of home.” He smiles. “But this does not do it justice. This part of the house, this is for the Americans. But my office, that is where it truly feels like I am still in China.” He slips an arm through hers. “If you truly cannot be persuaded to actually fly across the sea, perhaps you would like to experience just that tiny piece?”

“I would be honored.” She smiles wider.

Once they’re inside the room, the ambassador dismisses his security and Cage wanders through the room, commenting on the various art hangings and vases. “This really is a gorgeous office, Mr. Ambassador. And I'm so glad we could share a little...private time.” She twirls a lock of hair around her finger and pushing the man down into his chair. She hears a soft thump from the hallway, Riley dealing with the security, most likely. She covers it with a laugh as she removes the man’s tie, pulls his hands behind the chair, and ties them tightly. The next second, she’s back in front of him, watching the look in his eyes shift from hazy lust to undisguised fear as he stares at the point of a knife inches from his throat.

Riley pushes the door open. “Excellent timing, Sam.” Her hair has fallen out of its careful updo, and she’s holding her shoes in one hand. One of them has a snapped off heel. _Looks like she was taking out her frustrations about her mom on these guys._  

“Who are you people?” The ambassador chokes out.

“If you want to keep your head attached to your neck, you should leave the asking questions part up to us,” Riley says. _Wow. She’s definitely not messing around tonight._ Riley sits down at the desk computer. “Get me his passwords, Sam.”

“My pleasure.” She turns back to the hyperventilating man. “Now I have some questions for you. And if you answer them all, your bosses back in Beijing never need to know you let two foreign operatives into your private study.”

The knife and the threats do the trick, and in less than fifteen minutes Riley has access to the ambassador’s offshore accounts, and has planted a worm virus that should be able to trace the source of the payments from the terrorists back to a location.

She closes the computer and stands up, smiling. “Enjoy your evening, Mr. Ambassador.”

The hallway is empty, but Sam’s well-trained enough to see some blood smears on the carpet leading to a closet. “Riley?”

“I busted one’s nose. Always bleeds like crazy,” Riley shrugs. “Didn’t do any permanent damage.”

Sam shakes her head and clicks on her comms before heading for the window at the end of the hall. _Might as well avoid the party altogether._ “We have the intel, Matty.”

“Good, because I need you two to back Jack up right now.” Matty’s voice is clipped. “His mission is compromised and Mac is missing.”

Riley glances at Cage, and there’s a flicker of panic in her eyes. _If something happens, she’ll think it’s her fault for not being there._ Their phones ping simultaneously, probably the location of Jack’s race.

 _The last two times Riley got split up from her team like this, Mac got hurt. Badly._ Sam’s sure that’s all that’s running through her friend’s mind right now. “Riley, it’s okay, it’s going to be fine.”

“I know. Let’s go.”

* * *

Jack revs the GTO as he pulls into place next to Juli’s Camaro, and leans out the window to wave to the bystanders. “Who’s Stoked for tonight?” Jack yells. He doesn’t get the response Juli’s earlier shout did, but that’s because most of these people don’t know him. It doesn’t really matter, he’s here to show off and make sure he sells his cover perfectly. Because if all goes well, by the end of the night, he’ll have everything he needs to put Gomez and his guys away.

He can’t deny there’s something enjoyable about the thrill of the crowd. He can see how people are willing to risk getting caught for this. And he hasn’t even started the race yet. _I’m lucky. I get to drive like this for my job, and it’s...well, maybe not always legal, but I usually don’t get in trouble for it._

He’s watched a couple of the other guys race already, and he’s gotten the feel for how this group seems to race. It’s pretty fair, he hasn’t seen anyone pull any dirty tricks yet. Which means he’s just going to have to be better than Juli. _I can do this._

He waits for the signal, and then guns the GTO straight out of the start, steering carefully to avoid the worst of the fishtailing. _If I can get in front of him and stay there, that might be the only chance I have of winning._ But Juli’s car is just a little faster on the takeoff, and Jack finds himself running off the rear quarterpanel, barely avoiding getting passed.

He pulls out a little farther, hoping to just push harder than the other car, but he’s fairly well matched and the GTO doesn’t have the special modifications the other car does. Jack’s car is streamlined, but it’s a little heavier, with the all metal body. The two vehicles barrel down the street, engines roaring. Jack knows these races are over before anyone expects it.

 _Mac, I sure hope this plan of yours works._ He reaches for the dash and tugs on the wire running through there and into the engine. Mac swears whatever he did won’t hurt the car, and Jack really hopes he’s right. _If he did it wrong I may not live long enough to find out._

The GTO’s engine pitch rises to a screaming whine and the car leaps forward, gaining on the Camaro and putting the front bumper over the line just seconds before Juli’s car. Jack spins into a stop at the end. _Holy crap that was awesome. Mac is gonna be so glad that worked._

“Hell yeah, baby!” Jack leaps out of the car, pumping his fist in the air. Juli looks startled but impressed. Hopefully that’s good enough to get him an in.

And then he stops cheering, realizing what’s missing. _Mac should be right here._ There’s no reason for him to be anywhere but at the race. He should be right here babbling physics terms and popping the hood to get a look at exactly how whatever he did performed.

 _Stop panicking. It’s a big crowd, maybe he’s somewhere in the middle._ Jack pulls out his phone and shoots off a text. **Won, and your doohickey worked great. Where are you?** Mac doesn’t respond.

 _He probably just didn’t hear the text come in. Right?_ But the slowly spreading dread is sapping all the energy out of the air. Jack’s still waving, still smiling, still pretending this is the best thing that’s happened all night. But he can’t see Mac anywhere.

Juli is looking at his own phone, and frowning. Jack sees him glance quickly his direction, then back to the phone. _What..._ The pieces fall into place with a disturbing finality. _Mac decided to speed things up and do some investigating on his own._ Not that Jack blames him, there was no certainty he was going to get Juli’s approval, and they need to take these guys down soon. _And he knows La Ola’s methods, maybe he figured out where they were stashing the guns._ But none of that matters, because the way this looks, Mac got caught.

Jack glances up the street, just in time to see an old yellow Camaro, one he recognizes from the shop, pulling out of the garage alley. And then he sees the brown shoe waving itself out of a busted out taillight. _Mac!_

Jack guns the car, and thankfully the still-cheering crowd have the sense to get out of the way. He’s already spun the GTO around in his victory circle, and it’s seconds before he’s on the road after the car. But Mac’s little air intake trick will only work once, and try as he might Jack is struggling to gain on the disappearing car.

If Juli’s guys get Mac away from him, God only knows what they’re going to do to him. _They could very well be planning to kill him and dump his body in the ocean somewhere._ But he can’t forget the conversation from earlier, and he’s seen the stares when Mac’s leaning over an engine, heard the mumbled innuendos and dirty jokes. _They could keep him for themselves, or sell him._ None of these options ends well for Mac, and Jack is sure the kid is painfully aware of that too.

He presses Matty’s number. “Matty, the whole thing went to hell, they’ve got Mac. Round them all up now.” If these guys do manage to ghost on him, maybe one of the other racers will know where they went.

The car is heading out of town, up into the hills. Jack can tell they’re angling for the ocean, he can smell the salt breeze. _Are they planning on dumping a body, or are they gonna take him to a boat?_

The road is a series of switchback curves heading down toward the water here. The other car is slowing down, understandably. Jack doesn’t hesitate. _I’ve done this before. In a military convoy truck. Without brakes._ He whips the GTO around the first curve, then the next. Now he’s barely half a curve away from the other car.

 _I could run them off the road by clipping the rear end, but that runs the risk of hurting Mac._ He can still see that shoe in the broken taillight. He’ll have to get in front and force them off.

He takes the next corner on two wheels. There’s a horribly weightless moment where he thinks the car might actually flip, but now the heavy metal body is working in his favor, because it slams the car back onto the road right side up. Jack guns the engine and moves just a bit ahead of the other vehicle, creeping into its lane, forcing the driver to slow before he gets into a deadly crash. The car skids to a stop just a few feet away from the next switchback, and Jack jumps out, pulling his gun on the two men inside. Ruiz is driving, and Jack fights back a horrible surge of nausea.

“Get out of the car.” Jack keeps his gun on both men until they’re standing in front of him, then knocks them both out fast. He doesn’t have the time to tie them up, and he’s not taking that gun off them for a second. He snatches the keys out of the ignition and rushes to the trunk, fumbling to get it open. “Mac, I’m gonna get you outta there, just give me a second, okay? I’m coming.”

The trunk pops open, and Jack stares down at Mac, curled up shaking in the corner. Mac looks up at him, and Jack can tell there are tear streaks on his face, silvery in the moonlight. “Hey, it’s okay, it’s gonna be okay.” He gently pulls the tape off the kid’s mouth and cuts the zipties holding his hands and legs. “Hey, Mac, are you hurt?” He doesn’t dare touch Mac if something terrible happened.

Mac just shakes his head, and then reaches for Jack, shivering, eyes desperate. Jack reaches in and pulls him out, now that he knows Mac’s okay with being touched. _I’m always afraid I’ll scare him more, when all I want to do is hold on tight and protect him._

“Mac, it’s okay. I got you. It’s okay.” Mac is shaking, fingers clutched tightly in Jack’s shirt. _Last time someone knocked him out and shoved him in a car trunk..._ Last time was Mexico. Jack is sincerely grateful this didn’t end in a similar way.

Jack hugs him tightly, feeling Mac’s tears soaking his shirt, and his own running down his cheeks. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m right here. Oh kiddo, I got you, I got you.”

* * *

INSIDE A CAR TRUNK

THIS NEVER GOES WELL

Mac shivers. The smell of trunk carpet and exhaust fumes is making him dizzy and shaky. As is the thought of what’s waiting for him at the end of this. Ruiz’s smile and the hands roaming him while the man ziptied him and tossed him in the trunk are truly horrifying. _He’s going to do whatever he wants, whether they want to kill me or not._ He can’t tell if he just managed to blow the whole op, if they know what he was here for, or if they just think he’s a troublemaker. _Maybe all they wanted was an excuse to drag me off somewhere and…_ He stops himself there. Thinking about that won’t help him get out of this.

His phone is gone, smashed up in some dark corner of that shop. _Jack would think that was funny._ Mac swallows down the sudden urge to sob. _No, don’t think like that, he’s gonna come find you and then you can laugh about the phone around the fire later._

The car swerves around a tight corner and Mac slams into the side of the trunk. His ankle, still sticking out of the hole where he kicked out the taillight, is suddenly in a world of pain, and he’d scream if there wasn’t a strip of duct tape slapped over his mouth. His head hurts, his shoulders hurt, his whole body hurts.

The smell of dust and sand is stronger, and Mac flinches. _In the back of a car...crossing the border...heading down to Mexico, all alone._ Jack doesn’t know where he is, no one knows, no one will care because all he is is another escaped prisoner who vanished...

He blinks; he’s wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, not an orange jumpsuit. _Focus, get a grip. Or these flashbacks are going to get you killed._ He was hoping things were going to get better, after the appeal and the worst of the charges getting dropped. _I thought knowing I didn’t have to be scared of going back would make those things just a bad memory._ But he’s just as terrified as ever.

He focuses on what’s different this time. He can smell the ocean, not endless sandiness. _Are they just planning to kill me and dump the body?_ He feels sick that that’s almost a relief. _No, don’t think like that, you have to focus on finding a way out._ He hopes someone saw the kicked out taillight. _They should call the police if they did..._ Not that he particularly wants to deal with the police either, but anything is better than simply disappearing, probably being used and then killed. _They wouldn’t lock me up, would they? Not when I’m the one who got kidnapped..._

And then he hears the sound of a very familiar engine. _That’s the GTO. Jack came after me._ He knows he’s crying now, but he doesn’t really care, because it’s relief, not fear. Even as the car swings around more corners, slamming him into the side of the trunk, aggravating existing bruises and making new ones, he doesn’t feel that raw panic anymore.

And then the trunk opens and Jack is there, and Mac’s not really sure of how any of it happens, but eventually he’s sitting in the back seat of the GTO and Jack is right there beside him with his arm around Mac’s shoulders. “It’s okay. I’m right here.” Mac is dimly aware that the two men from the car are laying on the ground, out cold. _Should it bother me that Jack resorted to that? Because it doesn’t, really._ He shivers, glancing at the other car and quickly looking away.

“I couldn’t get out,” he whispers. He hates admitting this to anyone, but Jack won’t use it against him. Jack never does.  

“You did real good, though. You helped me find you, you kicked out that taillight. But you know, if you’re planning on using your own foot as a distress signal, you might be better off to wear some of those neon sneakers Penny always had.”

“I don’t think that would have fit in well in the shop,” Mac chuckles. Jack can always make him smile, no matter how bad it gets.

“Yeah, probably not.” Jack shakes his head.

“But…” Mac reaches in his pocket, there’s still one paperclip there. He pulls it out and starts bending it into the shape of a key. “When I was in that trunk, all I could think about was El Noche. About being taken down to Mexico, and what happened…” He shivers. “I thought I wouldn’t think about that anymore after a while.”

“No one expects you to be over that in less than a year, Mac. Most field agents don’t come back at all from something like that.”

“But Jack, what if it never gets any better? How am I supposed to do my job if every time I’m in a small space, I get flashbacks?”

Jack pulls back a little and turns so he’s facing Mac, and there’s something deeply serious in his voice and eyes. “Listen, kiddo, we all have things we can’t handle. Riley’s scared to death of needles and being unconscious, after that stunt she pulled in Malaysia to save Ralph. She refused an anesthetic when we took her to the hospital after she got shot, remember?” Mac nods.

“But that isn’t something that happens very often…”

“And if I have my way, you getting shoved in a trunk is not going to happen again _ever._ ” Jack shakes his head. “Everyone’s scared of something. Even me.”

“Even you?” Mac mock-laughs. “I didn’t think I’d ever hear Jack Dalton say he was scared of something.” He expects it to be something like snakes, especially after that mission in Uruguay. But Jack doesn’t even smile, and there’s the same aching seriousness in his voice.

“I’m scared of losing one of you kids. Mac, when I saw your shoe sticking out of that taillight, I freaking lost it.” He shakes his head. “I blew the whole mission to go after you. It’s a good thing there was a Phoenix team there prepared to step in. Because it didn’t matter to me right then if we arrested those guys or not. All that mattered to me was that you were gonna be safe.” There’s a shaken quaver in Jack’s voice. Mac leans closer against him, he’s not sure who is more reassured by the closer contact. _No matter how many times he reminds me how important I am in his world, it’s so hard to remember._

He stays there, leaning against Jack, until he hears a car coming. Riley and Cage step out, and get to work cuffing the still unconscious guys on the ground. Both of them come over to see him and Jack, and he can see the worry in their eyes.

He doesn’t tell them he’s okay, it’s too soon for that. But he does tell them he will be. And that is the truth.

* * *

MAC’S HOUSE

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER COMPLETED MISSION

Jack grins as he clinks his bottle against Riley’s. “Well, congratulations on your first successful op as a team leader. You’re making me feel old, kiddo.”

“At least you’re finally acknowledging it, old man.” Riley ducks the hand aimed to playfully slap the back of her head. “You started it, Jack.”

“You really did.” Bozer sits down and starts passing around plates of fresh-off-the-grill wings. Jack glances skeptically at the ones smothered in some kind of orange sauce.

“That’s not your Uncle What’s-His-Name’s hot sauce, is it?”

“No, it’s not, because you drank it all and I haven’t been to see him since,” Boze says. “This is just good old fashioned sriracha.” Jack pulls his hand back.

“Thanks, I’ll pass.” He likes spicy food. Sriracha, he insists, is not ‘spicy’. It’s a concentrated attack on the taste buds.

Riley grabs three of the wings, then hands the plate on to Sam, holding it over a drooling Mickey’s head.

“Ah, give him one, then maybe he’ll stop begging,” Jack chuckles. Mac puts an arm around the dog’s back protectively.

“Don’t listen to Jack,” he mutters, and Mickey turns around to lick his face; Mac has some of the barbecue sauce dripped on his chin and smudged on one cheek. “H-hey, stop, you can clean my hands okay?” He holds them up defensively, and Mickey’s immediately attacking them with enthusiastic licking.

Matty and Patty, sitting next to each other, exchange a glance that Jack is sure is nothing short of _We actually trust these people to save the world on a consistent basis._

“We have a solid lead on the location of the arms dealer who’s  been paying the Chinese ambassador now,” Sam says. “A team is on location to take him down in a couple of hours.”

“And Gomez and his whole crew are facing a whole lot of prison time,” Jack adds. “Thanks to Mac figuring out where the guns were being hidden in the cars, we were able to pin the weapons smuggling on them in addition to the illegal racing. And a few of them are going down for kidnapping as well.” He feels Mac shiver slightly.

Patty glances at Jack. “When we confiscated Gomez’s cell phone, we found a series of messages that led us to the location of the warehouse they’d stashed the stolen G-36 shipment in. All the guns have been seized, accounted for, and quietly returned to the CIA.”

“So despite the fact that the mission was compromised, in the end it was a full success,” Matty continues. “We have Gomez and his people in custody, and we have the guns back where they belong.”

“And we have Mac back where he belongs,” Jack reminds them, putting his arm around the kid’s shoulders. He’s got yet another official reprimand on his permanent record, he thinks he might be racking up one a mission now. But it’s worth it to make sure Mac stays safe.

He knows he broke every rule in the book. _The mission is always supposed to come first._ But that’s never been the way it was with Riley, and that’s not how it is with Mac, either. There is never going to be anything in the world more important than the safety of his kids. He glances around the circle on the deck. _I wouldn’t trade this family for anything. Ever._

* * *

RILEY’S APARTMENT

NO INDICATION THAT IT BELONGS TO AN INTERNATIONAL SPY

Riley shoves her fake ID papers into the space Sam was using, behind the loose baseboard. _Mom’s probably going to go through all my cupboards and complain about my food choices._ Even the bathroom cleaning supply caddy probably isn’t safe. _Knowing her, she’s going to decide that even though the apartment is as pristine as I can get it, she has to do it herself._ Diane is the kind of person who will insist on being a helpful guest. Riley sighs, glancing around the room and mentally assessing whether it’s parent-proofed.

She’s spent the last twenty-four hours on a whirlwind cleaning spree. All guns in the secret cabinet, all high-tech gadgets hidden away. _I feel like I’m in_ Mr. and Mrs. Smith _but my mom isn’t another secret agent. At least that I know of._

She’s never had an excuse not to clean her place before someone visits. _Most people worry about their guests finding dust on the mantel, or mold somewhere in the shower._ She has to worry about them opening the bathroom cabinet and finding the antitoxin kits, or pulling out a box of cereal and getting her backup Glock instead of Cocoa Pebbles.

She’s about to call it good when she sees the lockpicking kit prominently displayed on her bookshelf. She grabs it, stuffs it behind three volumes of the complete works of Charles Dickens (Mom always claims everything but _A Christmas Carol_ is too depressing for her taste) along with several spare comm sets and a few half-completed bugs. _Most of my stuff is at the Phoenix or at Jack’s place, but you never know when you’re going to really need something right away._

Her phone buzzes.

**I forgot what you told me the entry code was.**

Riley shakes her head before typing her reply. **I’ll be right down.**

Riley sighs and gives the room one more onceover. _Last few moments of freedom._ Before Diane walks back into her life and makes her feel like she’s fifteen again. _At least this time I don’t have to deal with one of the boyfriends._

She hurries down the stairs and pulls open the front door.

“Honey?” Diane drops her bags on the doorstep and reaches for Riley.

“Hi Mom.”

 


	3. Roulette Wheel+Wire

### 203-Roulette Wheel+Wire

SIBERIA

AKA THE ICE PLANET HOTH

Jack scrambles back through the cave entrance, gasping. His nose feels like a block of ice, so do his hands. He _was_ glad, this morning, that the storm had stopped, and it was possible to lay out some kind of sign for rescue pilots. But he thinks it just got colder. On the bright side, his banged up ribs and shoulder are feeling better. Or just going numb. _Crashing a snowmobile sucks._

“I got the SOS done, Mac. I kinda messed it up, but it’s too cold to stay out there and fix it.” He should have known, he’s never good at judging the right sizing for letters. Like the time he tried to make a birthday cake for his sister and it ended up saying “Happy Birthd” because he ran out of space. _I think a botched SOS is only slightly more life-threatening._ Laura was none too enthusiastic. _Probably because she’d just started middle school and wanted all the friends she invited for the party to think she was cool._ Jack always said he was just letting them know from the start that Laura was anything but normal.

Mac looks up from the pile of mechanical stuff he’s working on; his cheeks are bright pink, his lips are bluish, in the places they’re not cracked and stained with dried blood, and his breath is making shaky clouds. He shuffles to the entrance and glances out the opening before ducking back inside. “It k-k-kinda looks l-like the formula for s-s-sulfur dioxide. S, and O, and a l-little s-squiggly thing.”

“You must be worse off than I thought if you’re muttering gibberish like that,” Jack jokes weakly. “Did you drink that water I warmed up for you?”

“The one with the s-sticks in it?” Mac asks, making a face. “Yeah, I d-did. It t-t-tasted awful.” He’s shivering violently, arms hugged tightly around himself. “I’m t-trying to f-finish the r-r-radio.”

“Hey, you can take a break, it’s not going anywhere. You’ve been working on that for two days.” Jack reaches for Mac, rubbing his shoulders. “Hey, were you working on that damn thing without gloves on? You’re gonna freeze your fingers off.” He takes his own off and tugs them over Mac’s hands, pulling his hands back into his sleeves.

“I h-have to get it d-done so we can g-go home.” Mac glances back at the tangle of wires and snowmobile parts. “We h-have to get out of h-here before another n-night.”

“Uh, hate to break it to you, bud, but night’s comin’ real fast.” Jack glances out at the already darker landscape. “Let’s just rest for tonight and we’ll get back at it in the morning.” He’s pretty damn cold himself, but he’s at least got some insulation. Mac’s still too skinny; he’s not doing any too well right now, and Jack wants to make sure he stays as warm as possible. _If he stays up all night working on that thing, he’ll get frostbite._

“We c-can’t sleep, we’ll f-freeze.”

“No, we’ll be okay. We’ll just huddle up for warmth, alright?” Jack unzips his jacket, shuddering at the bite of the icy winter wind. He pulls Mac close to him, wrapping the jacket around them both. “I’ve done this before, I promise, we’ll live.” He vividly remembers the last time he was in Siberia, with Sarah Adler, doing the same thing to make sure they made it through another night. He tries not to remember she lost half a toe to frostbite. _We were walking ourselves out, though, trying to find help._ He doesn’t want to think about doing that again. _Mac’s radio better work..._

“If we g-go to sleep we m-might not wake up,” Mac whispers. “I don’t w-want to die out h-here.” Jack tugs Mac’s hat a little lower over his ears.

“I’m not gonna let that happen, bud. Okay?” He wraps his arms as tightly around the kid as possible. “Just go to sleep, I’ll keep you warm.” He shifts slightly so Mac is as bundled up as possible. “Hey, one t-thing you can be grateful for, I’m not a dead, gutted tauntaun.”

“Y-you still kinda s-smell like one though,” Mac chuckles quietly.

“Hey, man, it’s not my fault we haven’t been able to shower in three days! And for the record, you don’t smell so great yourself.” He grins, even though Mac can’t see his face. “When we get home, the first thing I’m gonna do is hop in a hot shower and sing Metallica till my voice gives out.”

“That sounds n-nice,” Mac mumbles, the warmth is probably dragging him closer and closer to sleep. “The sh-shower part, not the singing.”

“Ah, man, and here I was thinking you were gonna ask me to sing you to sleep.”

“Please don’t,” Mac whispers. “The acoustics in this cave would make it sooo much worse.”

“I’ll forgive that brutal attack on my vocal talents because you’re hypothermic and you don’t know what you’re saying.” Jack says softly. Mac doesn’t answer, his breathing has steadied out and he’s gone limp in Jack’s arms, small white puffs of breath rising from his mouth. Jack falls asleep to the steady rhythm of Mac’s breathing and heartbeat pressed close against him.

He wakes up to Mac literally jumping out of his arms. “Jack, I know why it wasn’t working!”

“Wh-aat?” Jack always takes a few minutes to properly wake up, especially when he’s gotten semi-warm and comfortable. He can see light filtering into the cave, they’ve been asleep for hours.

“I think the resistors aren’t close enough together. I need to bridge them.”

“Okay, cool, you do that, bud.” Jack wraps his coat around himself. He’s tired, and cold, and he just wants to sleep a little longer. Mac seems determined not to let that happen, though, he’s banging metal stuff around and muttering to himself.

“It needs to be round..uh...few millimeters wide…” He’s sorting through the piles of random crap he pulled off the wrecked snowmobile. Then he stops. “Wait…” Jack sees him glance at something on his wrist, then shake his head.

“You think a piece of that watch might do it?”

“I don’t know…” Mac shakes his head. “I just keep thinking my dad left it for a reason, so I would find it, and use it to somehow find him. There has to be a clue here.”

“Yeah, well, clue or no clue, that ain’t gonna do us any good if we turn into popsicles out here.” Jack shakes his head. _Mac’s still obsessed with finding his dad. And that scares me._ If a psycho like James MacGyver _wants_ to be found, he’s playing some kind of game. _He’s stayed hidden for years. I’m sure this is some kind of trap, and Mac is gonna walk right in and spring it._

Mac sighs and pulls out his knife, popping the back off the watch. “You’re right. I’ll get us out of here, and we’ll worry about that later.” He opens the pliers on the knife, and then stops. “Jack, get me the light! Please, get me the light?” Jack does, kneeling down beside Mac. The kid’s started shivering again, his hands are trembling where he’s pointing with the pliers to one of the gears. “This-this gear r-right here, it’s n-newer than the rest of the w-watch. Am I crazy or...is there s-s-something written on it? Right t-there?” He shivers harder. “This c-could be the c-clue to finding my dad.”

“Or it could be a weird piece of metal with random numbers on it. Mac, just do what you gotta do and we’ll figure this out somewhere warm, okay? I can’t feel my butt, man.” He’s only half joking.

Mac pops out a small gear with the pliers and jams it into the radio. Jack can’t see what he did, but he guesses it works. Mac blows on his fingers, pulls on his gloves, and then starts cranking the radio. When there’s some buzzing static, he starts moving the speedometer he turned into a radio dial back and forth.

“Mayday, this is Firebird Seven, requesting an evac. Mayday, this is Firebird Seven.” Jack really hopes this works. He has no idea what they’re doing, but Mac does, so he’s at least seventy-five percent sure this is a good plan. _Although he’s been in and out of makin’ sense since the first night, so I don’t know…_

“Well, it took you both long enough.” It’s never been such a relief to hear Matty’s voice.

“Nice of you guys to drop by!” Jack chuckles. Mac is laughing.

“Hold on, we have rescue choppers homing in on your signal right now.”

It’s not too much longer before Jack hears rotors outside. He and Mac stumble out of the cave, waving their arms.

“Thanks guys,” Jack says, accepting a mug of coffee as the exfil team bundle him and Mac into blankets inside the chopper. The mug feels like it’s scorching his hands, but he definitely doesn’t care. _I don’t normally drink coffee, but at this point I’ll take anything hot._

“Is that an S-O...comma?” Ted Hardy, the eastern Europe exfil team leader, yells from the front of the chopper.

“Yeah, yeah, make fun of the guy who failed third grade English.” Jack can’t stop laughing. They’re on their way home. Everything is going to be just fine.

* * *

Mac shivers, tugging the blankets around himself. He can hardly believe this actually worked and they’re going home. _It’s official, I hate hypothermia._ At least a cut or even a bullet wound is localized pain. This is like knives all over his body, and even getting warm again is painful. His teeth won’t stop chattering and he’s already spilled coffee all over his hands and his blankets.

He curls up against Jack, letting the other man pull him in tightly. He knows there’s multiple layers of blankets between them, but he still feels warmer from the contact. He wonders what it will feel like to actually get somewhere really warm. _Three days is a long time to spend in a place like this._ He knows he couldn’t have made it a fourth, no matter what Jack kept insisting. _I could barely even think straight, I was so cold. And I could barely move._ He’s still trembling violently.

“I can _not_ believe your snowmobile radio actually worked,” Jack says. “Man, that’s got to be one of the coolest things you’ve ever done.” He winces. “Sorry, that was a really bad choice of words.”

Mac smiles, his face feels stiff when he does, and he feels his lips crack again. There’s the coppery taste of blood on his tongue. “I’m sorry for getting upset about the watch,” he mumbles.

“Hey, no hard feelings, kid. People say all kinda shit they don’t mean when they’re freezing to death. When we got stuck out there in the tundra on that CIA op, Sarah called me a lying backstabbing jerk and told me if we got out of that op alive she was gonna...well, separate me from a very important part of my anatomy.” Jack chuckles.

“I just...It was selfish of me, to care more about finding…”

He feels a hand on his arm. “No, kid, that’s not selfish. You’re trying to do something good, catch a man who’s taken innocent lives and could take more.” Mac just nods and swallows. _He doesn’t know why I have to do this. That I need to look that man in the eyes and know if I’m capable of becoming a monster too._ And the fact that he just prioritized a personal mission over possibly Jack’s life means it very well might be possible. He shudders, and this time not from the cold.

“I should have done whatever it took to keep you safe.”

Jack sighs, that long-suffering sound of ‘we’ve been over this ground before’. “Mac, that is not your job. My job is to keep you safe. Your job is to do your crazy thing and save the world, which you are totally doing.”

“I know you don’t think me chasing my dad is a good idea, and I think you might be right,” Mac says softly. “I’m starting to put that before everything else, and that scares me.” He might as well be honest. “I don’t want to end up like Walsh, he let hating my dad consume him. And he turned into a monster willing to throw anyone else into harm’s way to get what he wanted.”

“Mac, you are not anything like Walsh. You did the right thing, you just hesitated a little. That happens.” Mac knows better than to start saying something about hesitation having no place in the field. Jack doesn’t want to hear that. “Listen, kiddo, you’re one of the absolute best people I know, in the whole world. And wanting to get some closure does not make you a bad person, it doesn’t mean you’re turning into a monster. It just means you’re human.”

“But you hate me talking about wanting to find my dad.” Jack tries to hide it, but that look in his eyes, the way he clenches his fists, even the way he talked about that watch...he’s not happy about this situation.

“No, no, Mac, I totally get it. I’m just afraid that man is playing with you. This whole scavenger hunt feels like some kinda twisted mind game. And I know you feel like you gotta prove something, and that’s what I hate. That that jerk who never shoulda had someone as good as you in his life broke you to the point where you feel like you have to win his favor, even if it’s just to track him down and put him away.” Jack’s voice is warm, warmer than the blankets or the coffee. “So if this really is just about trying to catch another baddie, I’m behind you one hundred percent. But if you’re doing this because you want to prove you can win his little game, that you’re finally good enough to outsmart him, then that’s all the wrong reasons.” Mac nods.

 _I don’t know if that’s why I’m doing this._ He does know there’s a part of him that’s still desperate to hear his dad tell him he’s done a good job, that he’s succeeded. But that part’s been getting a lot smaller over the past few months. Now he thinks he might rather hear Jack or Matty or Patty say he did a good job. _And they will, when I bring in James…_

He doesn’t know when he fell asleep. All he knows is that when he wakes up, he’s somewhere warm, and at some point, someone took his clothes and he’s in a hospital gown. He sits up carefully, there’s a warm weight that he realizes are heavy blankets spread over him, and he can feel the soft sting of an IV in his arm. He glances over at the next bed, where Jack is laying on his stomach. He glances up when Mac sits up and the blankets rustle.

“Hey, kiddo, how you feeling?”

“Like I wanna go home and hide in a bunch of blankets for a month.” He tugs the ones on the bed a little closer around him. He still feels miserably cold, and when the nurse comes to check him she confirms that he’s still slightly hypothermic, even though he’s been in medical for almost twelve hours.

Once she’s gone, he sits up carefully, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and shivering when the air hits his skin, even though the infirmary is quite warm. Mac officially hates hospital gowns. There’s never a _good_ reason to have to wear one, at least not in his experience, and they’re thin and way too short and he just feels so exposed. _I thought they were supposed to be trying to warm me up, but this thing is so drafty and chilly._

He guesses it’s better than Jack, apparently his complaints that he was getting “frost-butt” were actually valid. Mac’s only issues are that he was severely hypothermic and his toes and ears have some minor frostbite.

He wraps a blanket tightly around him and stumbles over to Jack’s bed. He knows it’s a bit ridiculous, but he just feels warmer when he’s next to Jack. “Jack, is it okay…” He doesn’t even get the whole sentence out before Jack is scooting over to make room for him on the bed. Mac lays down, wrapping himself tightly in the blanket and curling up next to Jack, who rolls just enough to put an arm around his shoulder. Finally, Mac feels warm.  

* * *

PHOENIX MEDICAL

A BALMY 72 DEGREES

Jack groans. _This really sucks._ But that should be the last of the injections. _But sitting is gonna be painful for a while._

The door opens and he hears a theatrical shriek; that’s definitely Bozer. “Oh my eyes! Why didn’t anyone tell me Jack’s ass was on the playlist?”

“Hey, can’t a man with frost-butt get some respect?”

“It’s not like it’s anything I haven’t seen before,” Matty says. Riley giggles, Bozer makes a choked sound of distress. Mac is just sitting on the edge of the bed wide-eyed.

“I’d appreciate it if we didn’t go there, Matty.” Although which ‘there’ he’s referring to could technically be vague. There was Mexico in ‘08, and then Caracas, but that was with Riley, and Budapest... _okay, it’s really not my fault I have a tendency to show up underdressed... in my defense one of those times the outdoor toilet blew over, once the pants were literally in the dryer...don’t ask...and then the one time I was actually in the shower when those goons broke into the room, what else was I supposed to do?_

“Calm down, Dalton, we’re all just one big happy family.” Matty shrugs.

“Which makes you the weird and slightly embarrassing dad,” Riley chuckles.

“Okay, okay, laugh it up, fuzzballs,” Jack grumbles. “Let’s see how understanding I am the next time one of you kids lands _your_ butts in here.” Bozer groans, Riley stifles another giggle. “Well, I’m outta here, so adios amigos. Enjoy the view on the way out.”

Matty slaps him, hard, and he flinches. _Yep, still hurts._ “Slow down, cowboy. This ain’t a social call. We’ve got work.”

“Oh, so this is a briefing?” Jack shakes his head. This isn’t close to the first time he’s had one in medical. “I hope we’re getting a mission in the Caribbean.”

“Why, are you looking to add sunburn to that frostbite?” Riley chuckles. _That was a low blow. Kind of literally._ But he can’t say it doesn’t sound like something _he_ would say. _I trained her too well._

“I won’t need to, if you keep it up with _those_ burns.”

“Unfortunately, that’s not where you’re headed.” Matty says. “Thanks to Cage and her interrogation of the Ten of Spades, we have tapped into a treasure trove of new intel, including a lead on the elusive terrorist group, the Red Fist.”

“Oh man,” Jack says. _This is big. Really big._

“Red Fist?” Mac asks. He’s swinging his legs and trying to look casual, but clearly this many people in the room when he’s got next to nothing on is scaring him. _For me, it’s just mildly embarrassing; spend as long as I have in the field and nothing is sacred._ But for Mac, it probably feels threatening and dangerous. He keeps tugging on the edge of the hospital gown, trying to pull it lower over his legs.

“Red Fist. They're an Eastern European group of radicals responsible for over 30 deadly attacks in the last decade.”

“I thought you said they were terrorists,” Bozer says. “These guys are stealing diamonds.” Jack can’t see the video, but he can hear the distinctive smashing of the glass cases.

Matty continues clicking through the briefing. “Well, in the last six weeks, it appears as though they've changed tactics, pulling off a dozen diamond heists all across Europe, hauling in an estimated $75 million.”

“And I'm guessing they're not just gonna put this money away so they could retire someplace sunny, huh?” Bozer asks

Cage takes over from there. “The Ten of Spades says they want to use the stolen diamonds to finance a major attack. Every relevant detail of this forthcoming major attack remains a mystery. However, what we do know is where the diamonds themselves are being held: in a vault at the Karabakh Hotel and Casino in Azerbaijan.”

“If we can cut off the funding, we stop the attack,” Riley adds.

“So you want us to break into the casino and steal the diamonds before Red Fist can use them? This assignment just keeps getting better and better,” Jack says, rolling over with a grin. “Now all I gotta do is come up with a cool cover name...I’m thinking something Ocean’s Eleven themed…”

“Your cover IDs have already been chosen for you.” There’s a vicious delight in Matty’s voice that Jack is sure does not bode for him. “Mac, you will be going in as Luke Arrington, an arms dealer with money to burn. Riley, you will be Emma Castillo, a notorious drug lord's girlfriend who's notorious in her own right for traveling with half her wardrobe. Should make it easy to sneak in all the gear you'll need to hack their system. Bozer, you will be Chet Walker, a money-laundering bad boy looking to spend some ill-gotten gains.” Jack swears he can hear Bozer’s smile. “Cage, you will be Francesca Moretti, heir apparent to a Sicilian crime family who may or may not be here to make someone disappear. And, Jack, you will be Ernie Bung, a disgraced accountant known for questionable bookkeeping.” That smile is one of pure vengeance.

“Ernie Bung? Why can't I be Chet Walker? And a disgraced accountant? That's just shameful, that cover name sucks.”

“Backstopped cover identities don't grow on trees, Dalton.” Matty smiles. “Especially not Phoenix-approved ones. There’s a reason we stopped letting agents create their own covers. They tend to be too _flamboyant_ to sell.” _I was right. This is totally revenge for the Nick Stokes thing._ He had a feeling that was going to come back to bite him in the ass. _But it was fun while it lasted._

* * *

Riley’s been to Azerbaijan before. But the last time she crossed the border, it was at night, in the back of a military truck, dressed as a soldier. This time, she’s walking off a 747 in heels and a slinky gold dress, carrying a five hundred dollar purse.

 _If Mom knew I was here and not at a tile sales convention in Phoenix, Arizona, she’d have a meltdown._ Diane’s apartment hunting this week, and Riley really hopes she signs a lease soon. _There’s something wrong with each one, to her. Too small, too big, not close enough to stores, not close enough to her job, the neighbor looks like a pot dealer._ Admittedly Riley is right with her on that last one.

She really needs to get Diane out of her place, because coming up with explanations for being gone at all hours is no easier than it was before. _At least then I was barely ever home because I claimed I had a job in another city. I just had to explain a lot of missed calls._ And Diane seems less and less inclined to accept Riley’s explanations. _I don’t blame her for becoming more suspicious after everything that’s happened in her life. But it sure makes mine harder._

She almost literally runs into Mac on the way in. He’s wearing a full black suit, and he looks just a little dangerous, perfect to sell his cover. He barely spares her a glance as he tosses the keys to a sleek yellow sports car to a valet and walks inside.

Riley heads straight for the front desk, putting on a show of being demanding and impatient, while she scopes out the room. Bozer has taken the flamboyant piece of his cover to a whole new level, leaning on the bar and throwing money around to buy a whole crowd of girls drinks. Cage is just walking in, she makes a moment of eye contact with Riley as she passes. And Jack is already sitting at one of the tables. He’s wearing glasses, the special ones Riley worked up that will allow him to take photos of security. His job right now is to stay out front and monitor guard rotations.

Riley takes her multiple suitcases up to her room, and pulls out her rig. Her job is to clip into the network and hack their security program, Steel Viper. Once she’s in, she’ll have control of security cams and door locks, and breaking into the vault should be pretty straightforward. It should just be a matter of distracting security long enough to get into the vault, grab the diamonds, and get out. And knowing Jack, he’ll come up with quite the distraction. _No one wanted to put Mac in charge of that part of the plan; fire seemed a bit over the top._

Bozer joins her around the same time Jack reports in. “Looks like the server room where we need to clip you into the network is being watched by some scary dudes. So we gotta find a way to get someone past them.”

“Does anyone go in and out?” Riley asks.

“Maintenance. But they got special keycards that the guards watch them swipe in with. And since you’re not in the network, you can’t fake opening the door for someone with a mocked up copy.” _That does present a problem._ Riley glances around the room.

“So we have to get a keycard and clone it, then.” She needs to have that happen in a controlled environment. Maybe faking an issue with the room? She has to make sure whoever comes is distracted long enough…

There’s a faint metallic clanking and she turns to see Bozer holding up a pair of handcuffs. “I think I might have an idea.” _Oh come on, really?_ But she has to admit it will probably work...

Less than ten minutes later Riley is opening the door to her suite, her dress exchanged for a short, silky red robe, leaning into the hallway to speak to the man maintenance sent up to answer her call. “This is so embarrassing. My boyfriend and I, we each thought the other one packed the...um...why don’t you just come take a look?”

Bozer grins from the bed, blankets pulled to his waist, shirt off, hands locked to the headboard with Riley’s normal _and_ spare set of cuffs. “Hey, man, this is super un-cool. Any chance you know how to pick a lock?” He winks at Riley. “I mean, not that I wouldn’t happily be trapped all day here with her, but I kinda need to get up for...you know...some kinda important things?”

The maintenance man leans over, Riley’s sure this isn’t his first time doing this, and while he’s looking at the lock, she carefully tugs his clearance badge off his belt and heads for the bathroom.

“I’ll be back in a few, okay?” She closes the door and attaches the badge to her RFID reader. In a few minutes, she’ll have a clone of the access code.

Bozer is still talking a mile a minute, he’s having entirely too much fun selling this cover relationship. “I keep telling her, lockpicking is sexy. I like bad girls, you know, those dangerous criminal types are such a turn-on? But she doesn’t seem to want to learn.” He laughs. “Oh wow, you are good at that! Honey, you should see how fast he is.”

“I’ll be out as soon as I can, babe.” She has almost eighty percent of the data now. “Just give me a minute.”

He must get the idea, because the next thing she hears is a highly dramatic groan. “Ah, ah, leg cramp, just a minute, ah, da-amn that sucker hurts.” Bozer is making distressed panting noises, and Riley internally begs her scanner to go faster, this really is embarrassing. “Ah, there it goes.”

She pulls the card off the scanner as the light blinks green, quickly clips it back to the maintenance man’s belt, and steps back just as he finishes with the cuffs.

“Wow, that was fast. Thanks,” Bozer says, rubbing his wrists and then pulling Riley down onto the bed. She yelps. “What do you say we grab a robe tie instead, huh sweetie?” His face is uncomfortably close to her neck. “I was a boy scout for six years, I know knots.”

She giggles and stands up, shaking her head. “I’m sorry,” she mouths to the maintenance man, who’s trying to get to the door without calling attention to himself. “He’s incorrigible.” She smiles and shoves a fifty in his shirt pocket. _It’s the least I can do. Stealing his access code is probably gonna get him fired once we actually make the heist._

As soon as the door is shut, she flings Bozer’s discarded clothes at him. “Put some pants on, we have work to do.”

* * *

The two door guards barely give Mac a glance when he comes through, carrying a tool bag and wearing a worker’s coveralls and cap. It’s only a couple minutes’ work to attach Riley’s gadgets to the servers and get her into the security network.

“Alright, Riley, you’re in the network.” He picks up his tools. “I’m done here and I’ll see you back at the room in a few.”

Jack’s voice crackles over comms. “Whoa, whoa, Mac, not yet dude. We gotta new player to the game. Some hottie with a beefed up security detail is outside the doors chatting with the guards.”

“Okay, I’ll just wait for her to leave.” Mac leans against the wall, feeling sweat dampening his hair and running down his back. The server room is unpleasantly warm. _I guess I’ll take this over Siberia._

“Hold on, looks like she’s about to go inside, and if someone finds what you’ve been up to it ain’t gonna go well.” Mac feels a sudden cold fear run down his spine. _Maybe I could get out before they realized what I was doing, but I can’t count on it._ And he really, really doesn’t want to get caught and thrown in some jail over here. When Jack speaks up again, the sound is incredibly reassuring. “Mac, I’m gonna make you a distraction, okay?” A few seconds later there’s a lot of angry yelling, apparently Jack punched a guy across the table from him and accused him of counting cards. Mac can hear someone else shouting at him to calm down.

“Okay, Mac, go,” Sam says. “Jack’s got them really well tied up, there’s only one guy at your door now.” Mac pushes the door open and steps out into the hall. He can vaguely hear the shouting from the poker table. He just nods to the door guard and walks away.

He’s changed back into his cover’s clothes by the time Jack arrives, a little disheveled but grinning. “Turns out, the dude was actually cheating, he was using his watch face to read the cards. I actually ended up getting thanked, which is a first for me. Usually casino brawls end with the bouncers kicking me to the curb.”

“And Mac got me clipped into the network, so their Steel Viper system is about to become _our_ Steel Viper system.”

“Nice work, kiddo,” Jack says, giving Mac a fist bump as he walks past him. “As a wise man once said, “all right, all right, all right,” he chuckles, popping open a bottle of champagne and wincing as the cork nearly hits Bozer.

Mac rolls his eyes. “That was a movie, Jack.”

“Doesn’t mean it wasn’t wise.” Jack flops back on the couch.

“So all you have to do is get past their firewall?” Bozer asks.

“I think you're forgetting about the part where we still have to sneak past security and crack into a state-of-the-art vault,” Sam says, sipping her own champagne glass.

Riley glances up from the computer for a second. “Yeah, I kind of feel like you're about to jinx this whole thing, Boze. You know, the first rule of spy school is never assume an op is easy.”

Mac’s seen enough field missions go sideways to instinctively know that. Honestly, he knew it before he was even a Phoenix agent. _There’s no such thing as easy. If it’s easy, you missed something important._ And very often, that ‘something important’ is incredibly dangerous.

Riley’s computer chirps, and the second she looks up, Mac knows this is bad. “Guys, we got a problem. I don't know what security system this is, but it's not Steel Viper. Everything's been upgraded. Thermal imaging, biometric scanners, and worst of all, the vault's been upgraded, too.”

“Our whole plan just went bust.” Sam sets her drink down so hard some of it sloshes over the sides.

“Okay, so what do we do now?” Bozer asks. “Do we abort?”

Mac shakes his head. They have a terrorist group bent on some unknown and dangerous plan, and they’re the only thing standing between Red Fist and whatever it is they’re going to unleash on the world. “No. We improvise.”

* * *

There is nothing Riley likes about this situation. She’s got Matty on video chat, and explaining this makes her feel even worse than just reading the specs on the schematics did. _It feels way more real and intimidating when I have to say it out loud._

“All six walls are titanium. The tumblers, the dial, the locking bolts, also titanium. Two sets of re-lockers, cable-triggered and thermal, both titanium, and as if that wasn't enough, the whole thing is encased in…”

Matty sighs. “Let me guess, more titanium.”

“No. It's M-rated ballistic plate armor. Way stronger than titanium.”

Jack winces. “So this vault could withstand a direct hit from a tank.”

“Actually, it could withstand a nuclear blast,” Mac mumbles. Cage gives him an approving look. Jack shrugs.

“Now the good news, right?” Bozer asks.

“If by good news, you mean more bad news, then yeah, coming right up. The casino's entire network has also been upgraded. I can access the cameras, but I can't hack into anything else without setting off alarms. Oh, and the clone key card doesn't work in the basement where the vault is, so, now, we need a nine-digit access code. Which changes every 30 seconds, by the way. And a way to get past the iris scanner.”

“So it sounds like breaking into this vault is gonna be impossible.” Jack starts pacing, and Riley can hear him humming “Mission Impossible” theme music under his breath. _Not helping, Jack._

Matty puts her hands on her hips, it’s just as intimidating long-distance as it is in person. “Well, we're just gonna have to do the impossible because we just intercepted intel that those diamonds are gonna be used to purchase a WMD.”

“It looks like all these upgrades were just added in the past two weeks, after the casino hired a new head of security,” Riley says. “Who is the only person who has the codes to the vault. And the iris that the scanner will accept.”

“Cool, get me a name and I’ll just drag that asshat down the basement and borrow his eye,” Jack says. “I saw that in a movie once, they just ripped the guy’s eyeball out…”

Bozer shivers.

“No one is ripping any eyes out today,” Sam says. “As good as it would probably feel, we want to avoid an international incident if possible.”

“I was kidding! Does no one get a joke anymore?”

“Actually, it looks like _you_ ID’ed _her,_ Jack,” Riley says. “Your glasses snapped an image of the woman talking to security at the server room, and I automatically have them set to run image captures through Phoenix facial rec. I’ve already found three fugitives, a known money launderer, and two suspected assassins. And our new security chief.” She pulls up the dossier.

“Oooh, Vera Kazakova, former GRU officer and expert interrogator.” Sam leans in to study the file. “Never personally crossed paths with her, but I’ve heard stories. She went into private security after more than a decade as a Russian spy. I heard rumors Scorpion tried to recruit her after I went dark.”

“Looks like she chose a slightly safer and more lucrative profession,” Jack says. “So if we can’t just grab her and steal her codes and her eye, how are we gonna do this?”

“She gets the access code through a 2FA app on her encrypted phone,” Riley says. “But I think I can rig up something to piggyback her signal so I can get it. Jack, hand me your phone.”

“Not you too,” Jack moans. “You’re gonna tear it apart just like Mac does, aren’t you?”

“At least I ask.” Riley grins at Mac, who only shrugs. “I can put it back together later.”

“You better, or you’re paying for a new one.”

“You do know Phoenix replaces them _free?_ ”

“Not for me anymore! They’re charging service fees now.” Jack shakes his head. “Mac broke too many in a year.”

“So that takes care of the codes, but how do we get past the iris scanner?” Cage asks.

“Just get me a high-res, close-up photo of Vera's iris and I could probably get us past the scanner.” Riley’s pretty sure between her and Bozer, they’ll be able to mock passable fakes.

“Well, lucky for us, we’ve got a Jack Dalton,” Jack adjusts his tie. “And I already have an in, I totally stopped some guy from ripping off her casino, so she kinda owes me.”

“We’re betting this whole operation on Jack’s ability to flirt?” Matty’s incredulous voice matches Riley’s own concerns. _Jack, she probably never wants to see you again._

Cage speaks up. “Getting close might be a problem. We want to get to her, we’re going to have to peel off her props.” When literally everyone looks at her with confused stares, she shrugs. “Seriously? None of you know rugby positions?” She shrugs. “The guys who stick with her. The bodyguards. So, any ideas?” Riley can tell, from Sam’s smirk, that she’s waiting to be asked.

“No, but I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Mac says. He’s getting the feel for how Cage works as well. _It’s still a little odd actually having her on field ops._ Riley’s used to seeing Sam on the screen with Matty. _But she does round out our little team._ She vividly recalls Sam getting a little tipsy one night and insisting she could assign everyone on the team a family role. Jack was clearly the dad, Matty was mom, Patty, after slight deliberation, got labeled cool aunt, Mac and Bozer were brothers, Riley was the rebellious big sister, and Sam ended up calling herself the ‘girl next door’. _I wonder if she feels more like another sister now that she’s out here with us._ Riley knows Cage didn’t feel as much like a part of the team, even though they included her in most of the get-togethers. _She didn’t get to share the inside jokes from missions, and she was never actually there for the things we talked about._ It must have been sort of lonely being the outsider.

“Oh, I already have.” Sam winks. “Let’s go steal ourselves an eye.”

* * *

Sam leans next to Mac along the bar, watching the crowd. _Most of the people who walk in here never realize how carefully they’re being watched._ People don’t normally scan rooms for cameras and guards. _Sometimes it’s easy to forget that the world can ever feel like a safe place._ She and Mac know better than most what it is to never be able to really let down your guard. _Even Jack and Riley can relax, I see them eating and talking together. Sure, they avoid window tables in restaurants and take alternate routes to familiar places, but they don’t obsessively check their own apartments for bugs or delete every iota of personal information from existence before anyone gets a chance to see it. They don’t look at a cup of coffee someone brought them at work and wonder if something’s been put in it._ They can leave the job behind, even if just for a little while, and be something approaching normal.

She and Mac will never have that luxury. For her, it’s the looming fear that failure will mean elimination, from her own agency. _What Scorpion instilled in me will never really be gone, that control, that fear._ For Mac, it’s the thought that anyone could see him as something for the taking, as nothing more than a way to satisfy themselves. _He and I are the ones who don’t have even a chance at normalcy._ She made her peace a long time ago with that inability to trust, she lives around it and has accepted that it means she won’t get the kind of life most people want. That her friendships are always going to carry the slight bitter taint of fear, of expected betrayal. _Mac is going to spend the rest of his life wondering who plans to take advantage of him._ The same kind of inability to trust, just for different reasons.

She takes a sip of her drink; this feels eerily familiar. The risque dress, the gamble that she’s reading the mark right, the drinks before the job, this is Deborah’s area of expertise. _She’s never not going to be a part of me._ She might as well accept that burying Scorpion didn’t bury her past life with it. _I don’t get to erase it and pretend it never existed. I only get to move forward._

“So, what’s your plan?” Mac asks. “This isn’t the ideal time to con someone, everyone in here’s still on edge from what Jack pulled this morning.”

“Oh, I’m counting on them being suspicious.” She grins.

She buys a handful of chips and wanders along the tables, apparently looking for a game she likes, but in reality sizing up the situation. The taller of the two guards seems like the mark she wants. He’s younger, and a little less stiff than his partner, which is saying something. _I’ve seen more expression on the faces of Buckingham palace guards._

She sidles up to the man, making sure her left leg is clearly visible through the slit in her dress. Her Azerbaijani is a bit rusty, but the sultry purr in her voice should cover any fumbles in pronunciation. She slips a chip into the man’s pocket and saunters away. She smiles as she hears Vera walk over, demand to see what’s in her guard’s pocket, and order the second man to take him to the basement. _Okay, Jack, it’s your turn now._

* * *

Jack clears his throat and switches his comms live. “Okay, Riley, gonna do a dry run before I go out there, alright?”

“You’re going to test your pickup lines on me? Again?” It’s a pre ‘Jack-has-to-flirt-with-the-mark’ ritual at this point. He’s liable to let his mouth run away with him if he doesn’t get some of the goofiness gone first.

“Okay, how about this one?” He clears his throat again. “There’s no way I’d ever be able to calculate how important you’ve become to me.”

“Yikes, no.”

“Ok, I have more. ‘It’s accrual world out there but I’m willing to invest in you’. Or maybe ‘How about we get out of here and appreciate each other’s assets’? Too risque?”

Riley is actually laughing now. _That’s the point, taking a little of the stress out of these high-stakes missions_. “I’m beginning to wonder how my mom ever dated you, if these are your pickup lines.”

“Oh no, these are accountant pickup lines. Your mom dated Jack Dalton the tile salesman. Tile pickup lines are totally different. You know, knowing the exact Pantone shade of their eyes and stuff like that.” He has a good one about grout too, but that’s not exactly one he wants to share.

“Oh my god, stop now before I throw up.” Riley makes a fake gagging sound.

“Don’t worry, I’m not actually going to hit on her with those.” Jack shakes his head. “She’s not the kind to go for cheesy.”

“I’m glad you’ve realized that.”

“I’m gonna bait her with the fact that I found a man she didn’t know was cheating, and a woman like her can’t stand to be one-upped. She won’t be able to resist the challenge.” He adjusts his tie again.

“You’re serious going to go head to head with a former Russian spy? What if she gets suspicious about how an accountant knows so much?”

“We’re here to gamble, right?” Jack chuckles. “Oh, wait, what about a casio pickup line? ‘I hit the jackpot when I saw you’.”

“Just go.” He can hear Bozer laughing hysterically in the background.

Jack steps out into the bustle of the main floor. He can see Vera, her bodyguards now gone courtesy of Cage’s plan, standing near one of the roulette wheels. He grabs a drink and steps up close. He has to get near her phone, and get a direct front image of her eyes. _Piece of cake._  

“You look like a woman who knows what she wants,” Jack says, watching her study a game of dice going on nearby.

“Yes, but I haven’t seen anything I want, yet.” Her eyes narrow. “Aren’t you the man who started a fight at my poker game a few hours ago?”

“And saved your casino from a hustler,” Jack grins.

“Mr...Bun, was it?”

“Bung. Ernie Bung.”

Riley’s voice comes through the comms. “Alright, almost there, Jack. But I need a clean shot of the entire iris for this to work, so she has to be looking right at you.”

Jack leans on the table and glances at Vera. “I was thinking, you know, I saved your casino a few grand, least you could do is get dinner with me.”

“Play whatever game you want in my casino, but never gamble more than you can afford to lose.” She turns to stare him down, and he hears the tiny shutter in the glasses camera click.

“Got it.” Riley says. “But we still need her phone.”

“There is a Michelin rated steakhouse in here, you know. I was kind of in the mood for something fancy. Luck’s been smiling on me today,” Jack chuckles. “Especially running into you again.”

Riley’s getting more agitated. “That cell site simulator I made only works at short distances. You’re going to have to get your hand within...six inches of her phone.”

 _Well, I don’t think she’s just gonna let me put an arm around her waist!_ Jack is running out of ideas. He’s clearly getting frozen out and any sensible man would turn tail and run, but Jack doesn’t have that option. _How am I gonna…_

He reaches into his jacket and pulls out one of his cover’s business cards. “Well, if you change your mind, my phone number’s right here.” He tucks it in between Vera’s folded arms and holds his hand there a moment.

“Cloning her phone. Getting the algorithm for the codes. Okay, Jack, I got what I need, now get out of there before you piss her off any more.”

“Okay, okay, I see how it is. You’re busy, you don’t know me, I get it. But if you change your mind,” he winks, “just give me a ring.”

Vera’s glare feels almost as deadly as Matty’s.

* * *

SUBLEVEL 3

SAM’S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE

“How do those contacts feel?” Bozer asks.

“Considerably more comfortable than some disguises I’ve worn.” Sam glances out the stairwell door. She volunteered for this one, if anyone gets caught by the Russian who spent a decade destroying people’s lies and getting the truth out of them, it’s Cage. _Mac insisted he was going to be the one who should do it._ But she’s not letting him risk it.

Riley’s the next to speak up. “Okay, I’m looping the camera feeds now, security will never know you’re there.” There are still two guards to be accounted for, but that won’t be a problem. Cage steps out of the stairwell, pretending to reel drunkenly.

“I’m looking for the bathroom. Can anyone tell me where the bathroom is?” She complains loudly, stumbling on her heels and swinging her handbag wildly.

“Miss, you can’t be here. This is a restricted level.” One of the guards comes toward her, clearly intending to take her back upstairs. She grabs him, flips him over her shoulder, and pulls the stun gun off his belt, knocking out his partner before the man can even react. She tosses a stray lock of hair out of her face and steps over the second guard’s legs.

“Okay, once you’re through the door, I’ll walk you through cracking the vault,” Mac says. “Riley, how are we coming on those codes?”

“I’ve just got the new one. Sam, you have thirty seconds to input it.” Sam glances at the message on her phone and quickly types the nine-digit access key, then leans down and puts her eye up to the scanner. The door beeps and clicks open with a soft whoosh.

“Guys, I’m in.” Sam starts toward the vault, reaching into her handbag for the things Mac shoved in there. _How a bottle of complimentary shampoo, a couple of coffee packets, and some...what even is all this stuff?...is going to help me, I don’t know. But I’m sure he does._

Suddenly, there’s a screeching blare of alarms, and the lights in the room go brilliant red. Sam freezes. _We missed something vital about this security system. Pressure plates? Heat sensors?_

“Cage, get out of there, now.” Jack’s voice is strained. But there are already guards running up, there’s no time to bolt. She’s well and truly trapped.

They may have her, but they won’t get the rest of the team. She pulls out her comm unit and swallows it in the seconds before the guards grab her and drag her away.

They haul her down a flight of stairs to the level she knows, from seeing Riley’s hacked schematics, is the one without cameras. She’s cuffed to a chair and her purse is taken away. _I guess it’s a good thing Mac uses ordinary objects and not specialized gear._

Sam knows exactly how this is going to go down. _Escorted into a room where there clearly aren’t any cameras, left alone for over half an hour..._ This is exactly how _she_ would handle an interrogation.

 _Which means in the next few minutes, she’s going to come in here, try to intimidate me, and see if she can break my cover._ She already knows the contact lenses are going to be a giveaway. _She has all my IDs and my eye color is listed as green on all of them_.

Suddenly, the door slams open, and Vera, flanked by two new security guards, walks in. _Oh cute. I bet the show of force works on most normal troublemakers._ Sam’s had plenty of experience with Russian operatives. _Classic intimidation tactic._

“Finally, I’ve been waiting for _hours,_ ” Sam complains. “I need a bathroom, can you please just take me to one?” Vera sniffs angrily. “Can you take these cuffs off? Do you know who my father is?” Sam rattles the cuffs against the wooden chair. _I could get out of these easily, if I wanted to._ But if Vera is focused on her, she’s not out there hunting down the rest of the team. _I can stall her for a while. Hopefully long enough for the rest of them to regroup and pull off the heist._

“This level is soundproofed, and there are no cameras. So here, it doesn’t really matter who your daddy is.” Vera dumps the extremely random contents of Sam’s purse on the table in front of her. “I want to know what you were doing with all this.” _I don’t even know what I was doing with all of it._

Sam tosses her hair, playing up the part of the spoiled, entitled rich girl. “What, are you upset that I was taking the shampoo with me? You should be grateful, I didn’t steal any towels.” She leans back in the chair. “I have never been treated so rudely in my life.”

“Tell me what you were doing.”

“Do you even know who my father is? When he finds out what you’ve done to me, I promise, you will lose a lot more than a few towels.” She kicks her shoe against the chair. “Besides, I thought guests were allowed to take the soap. I cannot believe the service in this place. I will not be coming back.”

“I don’t care that you stole the soap. What were you doing in the basement of my casino?”

“I was looking for the _bathroom_. The signs were so misleading.” Sam glances at the ceiling. “I must have taken a wrong turn and accidentally wandered into the basement of your casino.” She glares at Vera.

“The restricted area where we found you, Miss Moretti, has multiple layers of sophisticated security. It's an exceedingly difficult place to just wander into. And as for what you did to my guards…”

“Just let me call my father. He can explain all of this.”

“You are lying to me. And you know how I know? The truth…” Vera reaches down, grabs a handful of Sam’s hair, and pulls her head back, “is in your eyes.” She extends a finger and swipes one of the contact lenses loose, setting it on the table. “The iris scanner is linked to my phone's GPS. When my phone and my eye weren't in the same place, the system knew you weren't me. No one gets past my security alone. So, after you tell me who you really are, you're gonna tell me who you're working with.” Sam shakes her head defiantly. _You’re playing with the wrong woman, Miss Kazakova._

* * *

Bozer feels just a little shell-shocked. _That didn’t just happen, did it? Did Sam really just get caught?_ He knows things like this happen, but it’s still scary. Riley’s calling Matty again.

“I can’t find her. She destroyed her comms and I guess she’s in the level with no cameras,” Riley says.

“We’ve got to get her out,” Mac whispers. “That should have been me, I knew I should have gone.” He looks absolutely distraught, and his fingers are fumbling for the paperclips he clearly didn’t remember to put in the pockets of his new suit. Bozer starts looking around the room, there has to be something Mac can fiddle with to calm him down. _Maybe we should let him break the TV remote._

“Come on now, have a little faith in our girl,” Jack says, but his laugh is forced too. “She’s gone a few rounds with Sir Creeps-a-lot himself, she’s probably got that Russian chick singing like a bird down there.”

“At the very least, she can hold her own,” Matty says. “We’ll worry about Cage later. Getting those diamonds before the Red Fist can exchange them for a WMD is our priority.”

“It’s not that I don’t agree with you, Matty, but now that Kazakova knows something’s wrong, she’s beefed up security,” Riley says.

“What was once impossible is now impossibl-er,” Bozer adds. He feels like he needs to say something. _Everyone else is talking and I feel like I’m not contributing._ He wonders if it’s a side effect of too much emphasis on participation points in his film school classes.

“That’s not a word, Bozer,” Mac corrects weakly.

Jack shakes his head. “But he’s right. Going through that door is no longer an option.”

Riley clicks through a series of blueprints on her rig. “Well, if the front door is out, why don't we try the back door? The nine-digit code isn't the only thing I pulled off Vera's phone. These are blueprints for all her recent security updates.”

Bozer leans in for a closer look. “Does that look like a secret passageway to anyone else?”

Jack nods. “More like a VIP passageway. All big hotel casinos have 'em so the big ballers can bounce in and out of the penthouse when things get messy. And things do get messy in a penthouse, let me tell you.” He sounds like he’s winding up for one of his recollections of a past mission. From the sounds of it an embarrassing one.

Boze cringes. “Jack has a story about one of these I do _not_ want to hear.” Riley gives him an affirming nod, her face scrunched up in disgust.

Mac leans down, tracing the blueprints with a finger. “That passageway bypasses security, and it runs alongside the vault. It looks like our luck is changing.”

Riley types for a few seconds, then looks up triumphantly. “The hotel's booking system says the penthouse is empty.”

“Then let’s go,” Jack says. “Mac, you and I’ll head up there. Riley, Bozer, you guys stay put, and if Cage comes back, put her to work and tell her she needs to stop getting out of the heavy lifting by getting herself caught, okay?”

“Will do.”

Bozer leans on the edge of the table as Riley switches to comms, listening to Mac and Jack heading upstairs to the penthouse. “Do you really think Sam is going to be okay?”

“This isn’t the first time she’s been on a mission gone wrong,” Riley says. “This is what she’s trained for.”

“Do you guys just always expect the worst to happen?” Boze sighs. “Is this some sort of fatalistic spy mindset, where you just assume you’re not coming home?”

“Okay, honestly? I am worried about her. This Kazakova woman is no joke,” Riley says. “And if she wants to kill her, Sam will be dead and there’s nothing we can do about it. But I don’t think she’s going to want to get rid of her before she finds out what Cage was doing here, and if she was working with anyone else. So as long as Sam keeps her mouth shut, she stays alive. And I can’t think of anyone who’s better at beating interrogations.”

“I know. But what if it wasn’t her down there?” Bozer asks. “I just...I’ve been thinking. About spy school, and field work. And I don’t know if I could look someone like Kazakova in the eyes and not break. I don’t know if this is where I belong.”

Riley nods. “I didn’t know if I could take it either. I’m not going to lie to you, interrogation resistance training is...well, it’s intense.” She shakes her head. “It’ll dig up your darkest demons, take you back to the places you don’t want to go. But you can beat it.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

“Because you faced down the threat of being sent to a black site for the rest of your life, from Patty, who _I’m_ afraid of, and you never flinched.” Riley glances at him. “When it really counts, you’ve got more courage than you think.” She glances at her computer. “Mac and Jack are on the penthouse level.” She clicks on her comms. “Okay, guys, housekeeping finished the penthouse two hours ago. You should have the place to yourselves.”

“Cool. This should be easy,” Jack says. Bozer’s about to ask him if he forgot the first rule of spy school when he hears voices. Way too many voices. And then an overly cheerful Jack singing out, “Oh, hello fellas! So this is where the party’s at.” _Looks like there’s a very good reason that’s a rule._

* * *

THE PENTHOUSE SUITE

NOT AS EMPTY AS ADVERTISED

Mac’s not sure what to do now. Clearly, his and Jack’s entrance threw a massive wrench into this little gathering. Everyone is staring at them. _We really messed up this time._ He doesn’t know how they’re going to talk their way out of this one.

“Well, now we know why the penthouse wasn’t booked,” Riley sounds oddly calm. “They’re using it for an off the books VIP poker game.”

 _Do we run, and hope for the best, or bluff it out? Against clearly very good poker players?_ Mac knows he’s  no good at bluffing. He’s played a few games with Jack on boring flights, for M&Ms or goldfish crackers, and he loses miserably every time. _I have too many tells._

But Jack, on the other hand, is impressively good. And it looks like he’s decided to bet their success on it.

“They told me the game was going on up here, but damn this place is huge, I got lost for a while,” he chuckles. “Anything bigger than the back room of the local bar is a little confusing, ya know? Gunner Snyder, beef jerky king of Oklahoma,” Jack says, grinning. “Come on, at least one of you guys has gotta recognize the name. How about you, big man? You look like a meat eater.” Mac glances around the table. Jack isn’t getting too many friendly looks. Actually, he’s not the one most of these people are even looking at.

The bald man sitting at the far end of the table turns away from the girl in a low-cut, thigh length dress sitting half in his lap. “Lucky you brought your own. They’re not coming cheap around here.” He shrugs.

Mac flinches. He knows it’s not uncommon for these kind of high-stakes poker games to attract not only high rollers but prostitutes and porn stars. _People like this enjoy letting off steam in more ways than just throwing money around._ There are several people around the periphery, men and women, that Mac is pretty sure aren’t here for the game, it looks like all but two players have brought a ‘guest’ or picked one up during the game. He shivers, but tries not to show it. He knows the mission is the most important thing; Matty already said Cage isn’t a priority, and her _life_ might be at risk. _If this is the only way we get to stay in this room..._

“Hey, watch your mouth. That’s my son you’re talking about.” Jack’s voice is deadly, Mac can hear some of the real Delta Force sniper slipping through. “You say another thing like that about Randall, and I’m gonna bust your nose.”

He feels like he can’t move, frozen in place like he’s right back in that Siberian cave. _Jack just called me his son?_ He knows that they’ve been skating around the edges of that idea for a long time. Jack’s done everything short of coming right out and saying it. And now he just did. _I know it’s for a cover, but still._

“Hey Randy, I don’t think we’re welcome here. Let’s take our money and go elsewhere.” Jack makes a show of stuffing a wad of bills back into his pocket.

“At least stay for a drink,” the dealer attempt to conciliate. Clearly he doesn’t want to lose someone willing to throw this much cash around.

“I don’t know,” Jack mutters. “Anyone who acts like my son…”

“Dad, it’s fine,” Mac cuts in, _and it sounds so strange but so right to call him that_. “I don’t need you defending me right and left, I’m not twelve.” He edges toward the bar. “I’ll get you a drink, why don’t you sit down and play a few hands?”

“Thanks, son.” Jack’s hand lingers on Mac’s shoulder a little longer than necessary, warm and reassuring. And then he sits down at the table and immediately launches into what sounds distressingly like a company sales pitch.

Mac walks over to the bar. “Can I get a dry martini, stirred, not shaken?” He leans on the bar and pulls out his phone when it starts to buzz.

“This is Randy. Oh, hey babe,” He says as he hears Riley’s voice on the other end. “I’m still with Dad.”

“What are you doing up there?” Riley asks.

“Oh, he just decided to play a few hands before dinner. You know how he is, when the mood strikes he just has to jump right in.”

“That’s all fine, but he _changed his cover, and yours!_ Dudes like Gunner and Randy Snyder don’t even exist yet!” Riley sounds vaguely panicky. “Phoenix is backfilling covers as fast as they can but if anyone starts digging you two are screwed.”

“Then I guess we’ll just need to make this quick.” He laughs. “Yeah, I’ll see you in a few, babe.” He can’t quite bring himself to come up with any other endearments. _I feel like I need to wash my mouth out with soap already. It’s like flirting with my sister._

“Have you found the door yet?”

“This isn’t exactly the kind of place you can just pull on things till you find it.” Mac lowers his voice, but the bartender isn’t paying any attention. _He probably thinks I’m telling her something he’s way better off not hearing about._

“It should be near the middle of the west wall. The door is pressure release, held shut by a magnetic latch.” Mac glances around the room. A second bartender grabs a bottle opener off the fridge and pops the cap off a beer, and when he sets the bottle opener down on the counter, Mac notices the magnetic strip that holds it to the minifridge.

“Yeah, actually, it does. Be down in a few.” He hangs up, and when the bartenders’ backs are turned, slips the magnetic opener off the counter into his hand.

 _To find a magnet, I need a compass._ He glances around for something to make into a needle. There’s a spring-loaded martini shaker discarded on the counter, and Mac carefully snips a bit of the spring off with his knife and straightens it, rubbing it over the magnet until he’s fairly sure it took a charge.

He stabs the needle through a piece of orange rind, and when the bartender hands the drink to him, he drops the rind on top and then moves slowly back toward the wall where Riley said the door was located.

He walks along the bookshelf, pretending to be interested in the volumes, until the needle begins to swivel wildly. He can see a book on the shelf that looks slightly too perfect, and when he tugs on it he hears a soft clunk. _I found the door, but now I have to get through it without being seen._ There are two guards in the room, and one of them is standing disturbingly close.

And then the door swings open and the last person Mac wanted to see walks in. Vera Kazakova sweeps into the room and glances at the table. Mac sees her zero in on Jack. _Somehow, his cover’s blown._ He’s not sure if Cage somehow cracked or if Jack’s odd behavior earlier made him stand out too much. Probably the latter.

“I trust everyone is enjoying the game?”

The dealer frowns. “Is there a problem, Miss Kazakova?”

“Oh, no, not at all. I just like to sneak up and play a few hands when things are quiet on the floor. Or when something more exciting is happening up here.” She pulls out the chair across from Jack and sits down. “I thought you were going to dinner?”

“Well, I’m a man of many appetites,” Jack says.  Mac can hear that he’s starting to get a little worried.

“I can see that. Mr….I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name?”

“Ernie. But my friends call me Gunner.”

“Would one of those friends happen to be a blonde who seems a bit dissatisfied with her current eye color?” Mac sees the woman pull out something from her purse. “Because you really should keep a closer eye on them. And I don’t think she’s your only friend, is she? I think one of them is in the room with us now.” Her eyes move from Jack’s face to Mac’s, and that’s when Jack makes his move.

Mac jumps as Jack leaps to his feet, flipping the whole poker table as he does. Mac knows Jack would want him to run. So he does. He pulls hard on the book that unlatches the door and ducks through before anyone notices, in the chaos, what he’s doing.

He rushes down the stairs, hoping he doesn’t slip and fall. “Riley, I’m in the passageway, but they have Jack.”

“He’ll be okay. He’s Jack.” Riley doesn’t sound too certain of herself, though. “Just get to the vault.”

Mac leaps off the final two steps and hurries down the corridor. “Once I get there, I’ll probably need thirty minutes until-”

He skids to a halt, ducking back behind a support beam. “Mac, what’s going on? Can you get to the vault?” He glances around the edge of the beam. There are four men inside the vault, and they’re pulling out trays of something that they’re dumping into a suitcase. The light catches on the contents, glittering.

“Yeah, I can. But I don’t actually need to. The Red Fist is already here, and they have the diamonds.”  

Mac ducks back a little further behind the beam, willing his panting breaths to slow down. _Please don’t let them find me._ When he hears footsteps, he cringes, but they’re steadily moving away from him, and when they fade away, he slumps forward with a sigh. _Now what do we do?_

* * *

“Hey, guys, are you sure you wanna do this?” Jack asks as the two beefy guards drag him down the stairs. “You know, if you guys were to just, you know, make yourselves scarce for a couple minutes, I could set you both up with a lifetime supply of Gunner’s best jerky. Hey? Are you more of a mesquite or habanero guy? Or maybe salted molasses bourbon?”

“Stop talking,” One of the men growls.

“Oh well, your loss,” Jack says, and then they open a heavy door and shove him into a dark, chilly room.

He blinks when he sees Cage cuffed to the chair near the far wall. “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a dump like this?”

“I was looking for the bathroom. The signage in this place is a tragedy. And apparently we’re not allowed to leave with the shampoo.” She sniffs. “Why I would want to steal it is beyond me. It’s cheap. My hair feels like someone coated it in wax.”

“I think you look just fine, sweetheart.” Jack grunts as one of the goons shoves him down into a chair of his own and cuffs his hands behind him.

“What did you do, walk out with a coffee mug?” Cage asks.

“No, apparently they think I’m your friend, you little klepto.”

“I did not _steal_ anything,”  Cage insists. The two guards, who have clearly been dealing with her spoiled little rich girl act for a while, make themselves scarce. _She’s probably been demanding as hell. Which makes sure they don’t want to be in the room and gives us some space to chat. Nice work._

“You weren’t supposed to get yourself caught.”

“Hey, someone has to save your ass.”

“The sentiment is appreciated, but I am more than capable of saving my own ass, and I’m not sure how much I trust you in that regard, since it looks like that frostbite is still giving you some issues.” Sam tilts her head. “I was _trying_ to buy you some time to break in.”

“Mac’s working on that.” Jack shakes his head. “And I was gonna break us both out of here, but after that frostbite comment…”

“Oh, don’t worry about me, I’ve got this handled.” Cage smirks.

The door opens again, and Vera enters, holding a tablet. “Now, you will identify your team, or things will get really unpleasant.”

“Oh it’s already unpleasant,” Jack says. That earns him an angry glare.

“Your team.”

“Dallas Cowboys all the way, baby.” This time there’s an actual slap involved.

“Whoa, hey, take it easy there! It’s just football, no need to get physical, lady.” Jack grins. “Unless you’re just warming up for some fun.” He jiggles the cuffs. “I mean, I’m not really a fan of an audience, but I’m flexible.”

“Shut up!” Vera snaps. “Do any of these pictures look familiar?” She starts flipping through a series of images on her tablet.

“Seventies hair? Nope. He’s got better hair game, but I don’t have a clue who he is.” The next picture is Riley. “Wish I did.” Kazakova continues, the next picture is of a man with grey hair and a mustache. “Didn’t he write the music for Jaws?” And then there’s Mac. “Skinny little blond dude? Never seen him.”

Vera stands up sharply. “This man was in the penthouse with the sausage king. Find him.”

“Jerky! It’s not sausage, it’s jerky!” Jack shouts, before the door slams shut.

“Well, you handled that well,” Cage smirks. “But jerky, Jack, really?”

“Hey, I was hungry, and I was put on the spot! Actually, I’m still hungry. You ready to get outta here?”

She nods. “These chairs are going to be a piece of cake, but we need to get the guards close enough to take them out.”

“I think I have that covered,” Jack says. “Okay, give me a little space. Just scoot your chair back some.” And then he topples his own to the ground and begins to jerk back and forth, twitching like he’s in the middle of a seizure.

“Oh my God, he’s dying! Someone help!” Cage screams piercingly. The guards rush in, and when one of them bends over Jack, Cage leaps up, smashes her chair against the wall, and then twists her legs around the unoccupied guard’s neck and flings him to the floor. Jack jumps up and slams his chair’s leg onto the other guard’s foot and then when the man bends over, groaning, headbutts him hard.

“Nice.” Cage is bending over her own guy, pulling out his gun and a pair of cuff keys. She frees her own hands and then Jack’s. “Headbutt, simple but effective.” Jack grins. He likes working with Sam, she’s tough and sassy. And just the right amount of scary.

Jack digs through the second guard’s gear, grabbing his gun and following Sam to the door. “Okay, let’s get outta here.”

* * *

Mac steps out of the hidden door into the lobby, glancing around. “Riley, you got eyes on Red Fist?”

“Yeah. They’re in the lobby right ahead of you. Once they leave, I’ll tag their vehicles and task a satellite to track them.”

Mac can see the men now, they’re headed for the elevators. “Riley, I don’t think they’re leaving.”

“What, did they forget to pack?” Bozer asks.

“I think whatever deal they’re making is going down right here, right now.” Mac watches the men climb into an elevator. “Riley, can you track that elevator?”

“Sure thing.”

Then there’s a sizzling sound and Bozer yelps, “Don’t look at me, I didn’t touch anything!” _Something went wrong._

“Mac, I just lost cameras. It looks like hotel security realized someone was in the network and kicked me out.”   _Yep. this is bad._

Mac rushes to the elevator, grabbing a tall metal pole that was holding a poster. He pries the door open and glances up the shaft, the elevator is still close enough. He hopes. He hooks the end of the pole into the bottom of the car and prays it holds his weight. _Don’t look down. It’s fine, you’re going to be fine._ Falling to his death in an elevator shaft is pretty high on the list of things he’s hoping to avoid in life.

He’s hoping they get off somewhere like the tenth floor. But as the elevator continues to climb, his arms ache, and his sweaty palms start to slide on the metal. _I really, really don’t want to fall._ But the elevator continues to climb. Mac can feel his grip sliding. _Don’t look down. Don’t look down._  He’s getting desperate. _Please, please stop soon._ He’s not sure how much longer he can hold on. His hands and the pole are slick with sweat, and the ache in his shoulders has become a screaming pain.

And then they stop. Mac musters up just enough energy to swing himself over to a girder on the side of the elevator shaft. His slick shoe sole slides on the metal for a moment, and there’s a horrible vertigo-inducing second of feeling like he’s freefalling, but then he gets his balance, and manages to press the emergency door release. He forces his shaky legs to push him off the wall and into the doorway, and he scrambles out into the hall, panting desperately and deeply grateful there’s no one here to see him.

“Ok, Riley, I’m on the forty-ninth floor, so they must be on the fiftieth.” Mac takes a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself down. _Okay, you made it up the elevator shaft and didn’t die. Now all you have to do is steal a weapon of mass destruction._

* * *

Jack pushes open the door to Riley’s room. “Okay, kids, checkout time, right now.”

“We can’t leave without all our luggage,” Riley says, motioning him over. “The Red Fist, the diamonds, and the WMD are on the fiftieth floor.” She’s pointing to the TV.

“I knew these guys were weird, but broadcasting their purchase of a bomb?” Jack asks, watching the screen.

“There’s more than one way to see what’s going on in a hotel,” Riley says. “I may have lost the security cameras, but I did manage to give myself access to the built in cameras in every hotel TV.”

“That’s a little creepy,” Cage mumbles.

“No, that’s creepy, right there,” Jack says, as one man opens up the case of diamonds and another sets a different briefcase on the table. “We have to get up there and stop them before they leave with the bomb.”

“There’s at least seven heavily armed men up there,” Riley says. “And I can’t come with you, because I have to keep an eye on both the diamonds and the WMD in case either of them leave the building, and since I lost the system I have to stay where I can see the TVs.”

“Yeah, that’s okay, just do your thing. Cage and I got this one.” Jack turns to Sam, and she nods. _I watched her take out that many guys alone in the Phoenix siege. We’re good._

The take the elevator to the forty-ninth floor in silence, both of them checking the guns they pulled off the guards in the basement. The mags are both full, and while this isn’t Jack’s first choice for a handgun, he’s comfortable with it.

They’re going to take the stairs the rest of the way, it’s easier to avoid being seen. They’re hurrying down the hall to the stairwell when the door to a cleaning closet opens and someone steps out, nearly colliding with them. “Sorry,” Jack says automatically, then glances at the person he nearly totaled. “Hey, Mac?”

“Oh man am I glad to see you.” Mac grins, he’s holding a bottle of something blue in his hand. “I thought I was gonna have to do this myself.”

“Never,” Jack chuckles. “Okay, let’s go.”

They take the stairs to the fiftieth floor, and Jack peers around the corner slowly, sizing up what they have to deal with. There are two guards outside a door at the end of the hall. And then Sam pokes her head around and Jack can see nothing but a faceful of hair. He brushes it away and pulls back. “Okay, we gotta take those guys out to get inside.”

“I think I can do both,” Mac says, holding up the bottle and then rolling it down the hallway.

“Dude, is that tear gas?” Jack laughs. “I never get tired of this one.”

“You might want to cover your ears.”

“Wait, that’s not tear gas, is it?” And then there’s a massive explosion. When Jack looks out, the door is halfway off its hinges, and in a few more seconds he and Cage are inside. The room is total confusion, the concussive blast was clearly a shock to everyone. Jack takes out a couple guys before a beefy one pins him against the wall, but he manages to throw the guy off and knock him out with a nearby chair. Cage is a blur of feet and elbows and fists, she looks like she’s having fun. Jack stops for a second when he sees Mac run in and grab a tray from a table before bringing it down on another guy’s head. _Damnit, kid, I didn’t want you in here!_

Jack’s hesitation costs him, because the next second he’s on the floor, his jaw pulsing with a sharp pain and one of the Red Fist goons standing over him with a gun. And then there’s the crack of a shot and he winces, but the guy standing over him slumps over, blood dripping from his chest. Jack rolls out of the way as the man falls.

Cage is standing in a corner, holding her gun. “You’re welcome.”

“Guys!” Mac yells, and then there’s a crash from the next room. Jack is on his feet in seconds, rushing in. _Please, don’t be hurt, kid._ It sounded like someone got thrown out a window.

Mac is still, thankfully, in one piece, standing over the opened case that was holding the bomb. He’s still holding the shards of a lamp he must have used to knock out the guy laying unconscious in front of him, _so that was the shattering noise_ , but he’s staring in horror at the bomb case. “I tried to stop him, but Jack...he already triggered it.” Mac looks equal parts guilty and terrified. “It’s going to go off in fifteen minutes.”

* * *

Mac shudders, staring down at the man bleeding into the carpet at his feet. _I did what I had to do. Or I tried._ The past few seconds feel like they’ve stretched into forever, watching that man reaching for the bomb’s trigger, Mac bringing the lamp down on his head, the beeping as the bomb armed, Jack and Cage rushing in.

And then the world speeds up again and narrows to the countdown on the timer.

“Is that a nuke?” Sam asks.

“Just a baby one,” Jack replies. “Probably half a megaton or so.” _Of course Jack knows._

“Cute. Can we disarm it?”

Mac glances at the housing and components. “Maybe if I had an hour.” This thing is full of failsafes.

“How about fourteen minutes and thirty-seven seconds?” _Thirty-six, thirty-five…_

“Guys, Vera’s putting the building in lockdown, so whatever your plan is, I suggest you avoid the lobby entirely,” Riley says. “Do you have a plan?”

“We have to contain it. A blast like that will kill everyone in five city blocks. And leave the area uninhabitable for a few centuries,” Jack says.

“So, we can’t disarm it, can’t take it outside, can’t leave it here.” Cage says. “So what’s the plan?”

 _Plan. Plan. Have to contain it._ The last time this happened, Mac left the bomb that was about to explode inside their van. _And we got accused of terrorism in Amsterdam._ _On the upside, if I can’t figure this out, I don’t have to worry about going to prison in a foreign country, cause I’ll be dead._

_“And the whole vault is encased in...M-rated ballistic plate armor...could withstand a nuclear blast.”_

“Guys, we’re going to break into the vault and put this bomb inside.” Jack grabs the case and they run for the elevators. They need to get to the penthouse to get to the passageway.

“I thought you said it was going to take half an hour to get in there?” Riley says.

“That was when I had to make sure no one noticed we broke in,” Mac says. “Now I can do it the quick and dirty way.”

“Oh, there is one?” Jack asks.

“If I can find what I need.” Mac really hopes that storage room he noticed when he was down there last time has the right supplies. “At this point I guess we’re just gonna have to roll the dice on it.”

When they reach the vault level, Mac pulls out his knife to open the door lock, but Jack beats him to it, dropkicking the door down. “I thought you said we were doing this the quick and dirty way, right?”

Mac just shakes his head. The storage room is full of what he really hopes is just spare equipment. If it’s broken, this might not work. “Cage, plug in that slot machine, right there. Jack, stand those two roulette wheels on their sides, with the metal tops facing each other, about an inch apart.”

“What exactly is this gonna be?” Jack asks.

“Ever heard of Lorentz forces?” Jack shakes his head while Mac continues scrounging for the rest of the things he needs. Wire, he has to find wire. “Well, it’s what’s gonna get us through that door.” He’s pulling the wire out of one of the machines, it’ll just have to do. “See, the slot machines are feeding current to the roulette wheels, which are acting as a giant capacitor storing the charge…”

“So you’re gonna blow a hole in it?” Jack looks confused.

“Not exactly. Easier to show you.” He hands Jack a coil of the wire. “Wrap this around the handle, then get back.” Jack does, but he’s giving Mac a confused frown.

“I thought you said this wasn’t gonna blow up?”

“Not exactly. I said not exactly.” And then there’s a loud bang and Mac looks up to see that the handle is now loose.

“Did you just...shrink the metal?” Cage asks. Mac nods.

“Okay kids, less than a minute,” Jack says. Mac grabs the case. “Whoa, whoa, hey I should be the one holding that thing.”

“I have to position it to deflect the blast away from the damaged door, I know the physics, okay? I need you to pull the door open, don’t touch the metal with your bare hands.” Jack pulls off his jacket and grabs the door, groaning and straining.

Mac rushes in and sets the bomb down, pilling anything he can find around it to direct the blast away from the weakened section of the vault. “Guys, go, get out of here now!”

“Not without you!” Jack shouts back.

“I’m right behind you, go!” He leaps out and shoves the door. But the metal is a bit warped and he struggles to push it closed. _Come on, seconds left, MacGyver. You have to do this._ He shoves harder and the door slams, and he tugs desperately at the latches.

“Mac, get out of there!” Jack yells.

 _Ten, nine, eight..._ He’s done the best he can. He turns and runs, and then suddenly it feels like the world is flipping upside down, and he thinks he might be flying. Something slams against him, hard. A lot of somethings. At least one of them hit his head. And then he hits the ground with a thud that will definitely leave bruises and hopefully didn’t damage his recently healed hand. _I don’t want to be in a cast again._ And then he suddenly realizes how ridiculous he sounds. _I just survived a nuclear blast, and I’m whining about possibly having a cast again?_

Jack rolls over, somewhat ahead of him, groaning. “Did we live?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” Sam struggles to her feet, her elbows and knees are brutally skinned.

“Well, I can check ‘experience nuclear bomb’ off my bucket list now, at least,” Jack chuckles, pushing himself up and wincing. “Dude, that was wicked!” He limps over to Mac and helps him get to his feet, grinning. “Nice job, Mac.” He pulls Mac tightly against him for a hug, and suddenly his whole back is just one mass of agony, from his knees up to the back of his head.

“Ahhh, owwww,” Mac gasps softly, halfway doubling over in an attempt to escape the pain.

“Whoa, hey, kid, did I break you?” Jack asks. “Oh man, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine, just a little bruised.” Mac shakes his head. _Everything still feels wobbly. I guess that blast was a little stronger than I was expecting._ “Let’s go before that thing starts leaking any more radiation.”

“More?” Jack asks.

“Well, we damaged the housing so a little is gonna seep out...and the explosion...would have made any damage...worse…” Mac blinks, when did the wall turn into the floor? And why is it getting closer?

“Whoa, whoa hey there!” Jack’s arms are around him, and suddenly the ground isn’t rushing up at him. “Something is not right, kiddo...oh my god.”

Jack pulls his hand back, and it’s red. Like he dipped it in paint or something. Mac blinks, it looks like Jack has too many fingers. _Radiation doesn’t make people mutate like that, it just kills them. Right?_ Jack leans down, and now he has two heads. _This is weird._

“Yo, Mac, you in there, buddy? I think you got yourself a pretty nice concussion there.” _Oh. Concussion. Not randomly mutating._ Mac coughs out a weak and fairly painful laugh. “Come on, kiddo, let’s go.”

* * *

“Whoa, guys, what happened?” Riley asks the second they step into the lobby. Jack figures they’re not going to be able to get away with brushing this one off. Their clothes are covered in dust, and the injuries they’re sporting are kind of hard to hide.

Bozer’s staring at them in undisguised fear. “Are you okay?”

“Considering we were about thirty feet from a nuclear blast and survived, I’d say we’re fine.” Cage inspects her own war wounds. “Mac shoved the bomb in the vault, and it actually worked.”

“Yeah, and now he’s got a concussion,” Jack says. Mac’s been mumbling incoherently about the physics of both nuclear blasts and those electrical force things he was using earlier since they started climbing the stairs. _He’s really out of it_ . Jack’s never seen the kid get this loopy, at least not from a concussion. _I really hope there’s no permanent damage. That would devastate a kid as smart as him._

“Well, you may have contained the main explosion, but it still kind of freaked everyone out, so I think we should be going,” Riley says.

“Not so fast.” Jack flinches at the familiar voice, and stops in his tracks where Vera and a group of her hired muscle cut off their path. Jack is not in the mood to deal with a pissed off Russian spy. But Vera is definitely in the mood to deal with him. “So, you hacked my cameras, attacked my guards, and now you blew up my vault?”

“To stop the whole building and about five city blocks from getting blasted off the face of the earth,” Jack says. “So really, you might want to thank us.”

“What I want to do is throw you all in a cell and lose the key.” Jack feels Mac flinch against him. _Don’t threaten to send him to jail._ Matty’s already handled the legal stuff, so they’re in the clear, technically, but a concussed and confused Mac thinking he’s going to be locked up again is not going to be good. “But I’m not going to do that, because you saved my casino and all the guests.”  

“Now will you agree to have dinner with me?” Jack asks, raising an eyebrow.

“If I ever see you again, it will be too soon. You have ten minutes to leave. Starting…” She glances at her watch. “Now.”

“Don’t open that vault without getting a hazmat team,” Mac mumbles. “Everything in it is going to be radioactive for the next ten thousand years.”

“Mac, I love that you know stuff, but stop talking, or the angry Russian lady is probably gonna shoot us,” Jack says. “Sorry, he has a concussion. We’re going now.” He pulls the kid’s arm over his shoulder a little more securely, then turns back to look at Vera one last time. “He wasn’t kidding about the hazmat team, though. Radiation poisoning makes for really bad Yelp reviews.”

“Where are we going?” Mac asks, shaking his head and trying to pull away.

“Home, kiddo. Where we can get that thick skull of yours checked out.”

“I don’t want to go to prison,” Mac mumbles, it’s like he didn’t hear a thing Jack said. “Please don’t let her send me there.”

“I’m not gonna let that happen, okay? But you have to come with me now.” He carefully puts an arm around Mac’s waist, mindful of the bruises that must be scattered all over the kid’s back. “No one is sending you back to prison. We’re gonna take you home, okay?” Mac nods and leans on Jack’s shoulder as they walk away.

Mac, Jack, and Cage all have to go through a quick decontamination before they board the jet and take a round of radiation exposure medications, since they were so close to the bomb. It’s not the most fun thing ever, and Jack knows Mac absolutely hates in-field decon. He’s shivering when they meet back up, now dressed in the clothes from their go bags.

“Such a shame, I really liked that dress,” Cage says, pulling her wet hair into a ponytail.

Mac is quiet, more quiet than usual after a mission, and Jack can’t tell if it’s because of the concussion or because field decon tends to bring up less than pleasant memories. He decides it’s the concussion when, instead of walking up the stairs to the jet, Mac instead sags against him, leaning his head on Jack’s shoulder. “Hey, no falling asleep, not yet okay?”

He gets Mac settled as comfortably as he can on the plane, draping a blanket over him. “You can’t go to sleep, but you should try and lay still.” He has no idea how much damage the blast actually did to Mac’s body.

“Jack,” Mac whispers. “Would you have done it?”

“Done what?” Jack has no idea what Mac is talking about. _Not that I ever really do, but a concussion makes it even worse._

“I thought you were going to let them believe it.”

“Kiddo, you are gonna have to explain this a little more, okay?” Jack rests a hand gently on Mac’s shoulder.

“At the poker game. They thought I was a hooker, didn’t they?” _Damn it, of course that’s what he fixated on. This whole disaster of a mission, and those idiots are what’s gonna give him nightmares._

“Yeah, because they’re idiots who only value people for what they can exploit them for.” Jack says bitterly.

“I thought maybe you’d have to just let them think they were right, so they’d let us stay.” Jack feels sick. _He thought I would treat him like that to sell a cover, after everything that just happened with Gomez and the racers?_ The last time people made assumptions, Mac got kidnapped. _I didn’t try hard enough to convince them they were wrong. I won’t ever make that mistake again._ He reminds himself that Mac has a concussion right now; he’s definitely not fully aware of what he’s saying. “Why did you say I was your son?” Mac asks.

 _Oh boy. So that’s what this is really about._ “Because that’s the first thing that came to mind, kiddo. It’s just how I think of you.You’re always gonna be my kid, and I wasn’t gonna let them treat you like you were just someone that could be bought if they had the money for it. That wasn’t a cover, that was the real deal. I said that because I meant it.”

“I know you wouldn’t want to, but what if you had to?” Mac mumbles. “Matty said the mission came first, she wouldn’t let us get Sam. It would have been easier for Phoenix to change my cover into a random…”

“Listen. Matty doesn’t get to make calls like that for you. Cage is her responsibility, but you are _mine_. And I meant what I said about you before, you are never, ever on the table.”

“But what if it was to save the world?” Mac asks quietly. “You can’t put protecting me before thousands of people. If it was the only way to make sure we got that WMD…” _Damn self-sacrificing idiot._ Not that Jack doesn’t admire the selflessness Mac is always clearly displaying, but he wishes it wasn’t due to Mac’s inherent lack of self-worth. _He thinks like this because all his life, he’s been taught he doesn’t matter._ And Jack gets that Matty means well and that she has to focus on the big picture, but Mac isn’t like other agents. He’s already had to sacrifice so much to survive, and sometimes Jack thinks they’re asking too much. _He shouldn’t think the only thing that gives him worth to us is the ability to get the job done._

“Saving the world doesn’t mean a thing to me if you’re not part of it,” Jack says, leaning down to make sure Mac can look him in the eyes. “I would never, never put you in the position where you were sold out for the mission. For anything. You are more important to me than anything else. The mission, this career, my life. Okay?” He doesn’t care how many times he has to repeat that to get it through the kid’s thick, concussed skull. Mac has been so convinced that he’s worthless, that no one should bother to protect him, that it seems like no matter how many times Jack proves that wrong, Mac is just waiting for the next one, for Jack to finally give up on him. “You are never, ever going to come second to me.”

“But…”

“No. No But. No loopholes, nothing. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. Not the bad guys, and not the agency either.” He sits down next to Mac, pulling the kid against him. “I meant what I said back there. No one gets to talk about my son that way.”

“You’re not bad, for a dad,” Mac whispers, leaning a little closer. Jack gently puts his arm around Mac’s shoulder. “But if you ever give me a name like Randall Snyder again, I’m going to kill you.”

“Now that I _know_ you don’t mean what you’re sayin’. Randall Snyder is a great name! I tried to give you a good one, and this is what I get in return? You insult my carefully deliberated name choices? Would you rather have been Joey Concertino? My second choice of cover was Italian mob boss.”

“Did you seriously just stick an ‘o’ on the end of ‘concertina’ and assume it sounded Italian?” Mac chuckles softly, curling into Jack’s shoulder.

“You’d be amazed what people will believe. I mean, Chad Palomino was one of my best covers. But hey, if you’ve got a problem with my name choices, we could always just go back to Phoenix assigned ones. Would you rather be Larry Bung?”

“Sto-op.” Mac rolls his eyes and attempts to punch Jack’s shoulder, failing spectacularly.

“See, you’re better off letting old Jack pick the names. Unless you want to next time. Just don’t give me the name of some stuffy old scientist, you hear? I don’t want to be some unpronounceable Werner von Brown or something like that.”

“Von _Braun_ , Jack. And actually you’d probably like him, he’s the father of modern rockets and space travel.”

“Cool. So what exactly did he invent?” Jack sits and listens and runs his hand though the kid’s hair, keeping him awake and distracted until they land. _I like to pretend I get bored, but there’s nothing I’d rather do than listen to him talk about the things he enjoys._ Mac is so smart, and Jack may not understand it all, but he’s so damn proud of the kid. _Even if no one else was, I always will be._

* * *

RILEY’S APARTMENT

IT DOESN’T FEEL LIKE HERS ANYMORE

“Hey Mom, I’m home.” Riley tosses her suitcase (she removed any of her more formal clothes, her guns, and all tech at Phoenix) on the couch.

“How was Phoenix?” Diane asks, barely turning around from where she has three different ads for apartments spread out on the table. Riley freezes. _How did she...what did I miss...who told..._ And then her brain kicks in and she remembers. _I told her I was in Arizona._

“Fine. Nothing too interesting. Tile sales.” She shrugs.

“I’ve narrowed it down to these three,” Diane says. “I was going to call you yesterday, but I thought you were probably going to be busy.” Riley nods. “Jack went with you?”

Riley nods. Mom asks about him off and on, but she always sounds like she’s forcing herself to be casual about it. _Jack’s avoiding the subject entirely._ She wants them to both get over this and start over, but she knows that takes time. _Mom doesn’t know the truth about Jack. She thinks he’s afraid of a relationship and ditched her to avoid getting serious._

Riley knows what it’s like to feel that hurt. _I would never, ever trust Nick again. Not if he showed up on his knees begging me to._ She’s kept tabs on him since the whole Chrysalis investigation; he’s still with the CIA, on a long-term op in Singapore now. Riley hopes he stays there. _If we ever get paired with his team for an op, I don’t know how I’d handle it._ So she’s not pushing her mom and Jack to reunite any time soon.

“Okay, what are the options?”

Mom spreads out the papers. She still prefers hard copy of everything, no matter how many times Riley has tried to get her to just use digital. _How did I become a computer nerd with her for a mom?_ “This is a beautiful place,” she points out the pictures of a sleek, modern-looking space with a large open floor plan, “but it’s a twenty-minute drive more than any of the rest. It does come fully furnished.” Riley nods. “And then there’s this industrial loft. I could literally walk to work from here, but it does need some repairs, and...well...a woman’s touch. The last tenant was a personal fitness trainer, and he had no sense of style.”

“I like the brick walls,” Riley says. _I could totally see Mac making some stuff like those gear windchimes and turning this into some kind of industrial-chic place._ “It has character.”

“And then there’s this one,” Mom says. Riley almost chokes on her gasp. _That’s Nick’s old apartment._ Apparently it hadn’t sold yet. Probably the ‘death’ of the previous tenant and the fact that it was a crime scene for over a month didn’t help reviews.

“Ah, I’m not feeling that one.” She shrugs. “It doesn’t seem homey.”

“Oh?” Diane says. “I thought it was really nice.”

“It looks too good to be true, Mom. There’s probably faulty wiring in it or wall damage that all that furniture is hiding.”

“Wow, since when did you become an expert at home appraisal?”

“Since I’ve seen both in clients’ houses.” Riley forces a grin. “Jack refuses to work for people who want him to tile over structural problems. He won’t let them get away with hiding the damage.” _There’s really nothing wrong with the apartment, besides some stash cubbies Mom will probably never find._ But she’s not talking about the apartment. She’s talking about the former tenant. _He seemed perfect. And then…_

“Okay, I’ll take your word for it.” Diane smiles. “I think I should have trusted your judgment a little more in the past.” _I don’t really trust my own anymore._ “You always did know the ones to stay away from.” _Not when it was my own life._

“I like that loft. And I know someone who could help you with some awesome decor for that. I have a few ideas I know he could do. Want to see what I’m thinking?”

“You’re the one who works with interior design for a living. I’m ready to be wowed.” Diane smiles and Riley pulls out her rig. _I guess the only thing either of us can do is move forward._

* * *

MAC’S HOUSE

FAR AWAY FROM BOMBS AND ANGRY RUSSIANS

“No, no, no!” Bozer shouts, pulling Mac away from the grill. “No adjusting anything flammable while you still have a concussion. It doesn’t need to cook faster.”

Mac holds up his hands in mock surrender, then winces as that movement aggravates the bruises on his back. It’s been four days, he only just got out of medical this afternoon, and it still hurts. But it’s better than being dead. His memory of the first day is a little hazy, but what he does remember, he needs to apologize to Jack for. _I wasn’t thinking straight and I probably hurt him._ He can remember the pain in Jack’s eyes. _I should never have made him think I don’t trust him._

Mac can’t help but feel guilty when Jack walks in, flanked by Matty, Riley, and Cage, with a huge smile on his face. “Hey man, I’d hug you again, but the last time I kinda messed you up, so fist bump?” He’s still smiling way too much.

Mac returns the fist bump, but it’s half-hearted, and Jack notices immediately. “Mac, quit worrying. We all checked out clean, no permanent problems from the radiation. Cage is probably gonna glow for a while, but hey, maybe it’ll come in handy on a mission.”

“I heard that,” Sam says, walking in and grabbing one of her Australian beers from the fridge.

“It was a compliment!” Jack yells back. “But seriously, Mac, we’re all fine. Thanks to you.” Mac nods and sits down slowly, trying not to jar his back. Jack joins him, stretching out his legs toward the bonfire.   

“I was thinking about what I said on the plane. I’m sorry I acted like I didn’t trust you…”

“No need to apologize for that, kiddo. I know trust doesn’t come easy for you. And you had a concussion, those’ll mess with anyone. Matty says I hit on her after the one I got in Calcutta.” He leans over. “Right, Matty?”

“I have audio recording to prove it, Dalton. Would you like me to retrieve it from the mission file?”

“Nah, let’s leave these kids in a state of blissful ignorance.” Jack turns back to Mac. “See what I mean? No one’s going to hold you responsible for anything said after a knock on the noggin.” He grins. “Are you also going to apologize for insulting my choice of cover names? Because I think Gunner Snyder is one of my favorites.”

“Well, he may not be in a minute. Mr. Beef Jerky King owes Phoenix five hundred thousand dollars, so I think it’s best for all concerned that he never reappears,” Matty says.

“Hey, I was winning all of that back!” Jack insists. “I was on a hot streak. And if Miss Crazy-kova hadn’t shown up when she did, Phoenix would owe _me_ money!”

“Keep telling yourself that, Jack,” Riley chuckles.

“Hey, I’ll prove I’m the best poker player in this group. Bozer, go find us a bag of M&Ms so I can whoop these guys’ butts.”

“I think it’s your own butt you need to be worried about, Jack,” Bozer says, chuckling. “How’s the frostbite.”

“Oh, I think yours is the first I’m gonna whip!” Jack chuckles, leaning back and smiling widely. “Deal us in, Matty.”

Mac chuckles and takes his hand of cards, glancing around the fire at the others. The light reflects off the watch on his wrist, and he can’t help but notice the new cracks in the face, the scuffs on the band. It took a beating back there when the bomb went off.

But he’s surprised that he doesn’t care all that much. True, it’s the only thing he has left of his father, but James is a psychotic criminal who is everything Mac has dedicated his life to fighting. This, right here, around the fire, this is his family.

He looks down at the cards in his hand and grins. _I don’t feel bad enough about hurting Jack’s feelings to let him win..._


	4. X-Ray+Penny

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who wanted more Mac and Murdoc after last week's episode...Enjoy! Also, Unlike the show, I actually gave us the reunion scene between Mac and Jack...
> 
> It's Murdoc, so warning for threat of non-con, and non-consensual touching...

###  204-X-Ray+Penny

PARIS

NOT THE PART MOST PEOPLE COME TO SEE

“Okay, explain to me again how a bunch of random numbers on a gear on a watch led us to a cafe in the seedy underbelly of Paris?” Jack asks. He’s looking at the menu and frowning.  _ Normally, I’m a huge fan of French cuisine, but I don’t know if I trust anything in this place. The ratatouille might actually be made with rats. _

“I’ve tried everything to make sense of those numbers. Tried to turn them into a phone number, or match them to letters of the alphabet to spell a word, or coordinates. And this is where making those numbers into map coordinates puts us.”

“Precisely in the middle of this crappy excuse for a restaurant?” 

“Not  _ exactly. _ But it has a good view of the street. That’s important, right?” Jack nods.  _ Ever since I told him I’m more than willing to take his dad’s place, he’s kind of gotten weird about it.  _ He wonders if that’s because the only parental figure Mac grew up with taught him he needed to constantly be impressing him by learning everything possible, and proving it on every possible occasion.

Some days Jack feels like this was a one step forward, three steps back development.  _ I managed to get him to accept that I’m the father figure in his life now. But somehow that changed things between us. _ Ever since they lost James’s trail in Patagonia, Mac’s been acting...weird. Jack was so proud of the fact that Mac, with all his serious trust issues, seemed to trust Jack. Now, it’s like he questions his worth all over again, as if not getting closure with James has caused him to take all those issues and put them on his relationship with Jack.  _ Would all this father-son stuff have been better left unsaid? _

“And you think James is going to pick today of all days to show up?” 

“Not exactly. But I think this is connected to a clue, somehow.” Mac glances out the window again.  _ He’s so determined to get James.  _ Jack knows the kid’s spent a lot of sleepless nights working on this.  _ When he says he’s tried everything with those numbers, he means it.  _ Jack hopes this is all over soon.  _ Not that I mind following him around the world. But it’s tearing him apart. _

Mac jumps a little when the waitress steps up to take his order. “ _ Cafe au lait,  _ please.”  _ Geez, kid, you do not need more caffeine in your bloodstream. _ He hands the menu back to the woman with a tired smile.

She takes it, but her own face goes absolutely white when she sees his wrist, and she gasps. Her eyes are locked on the face of the watch on Mac’s arm. “ _ Cette montre _ .” When Mac shakes his head, Jack translates.

“This watch. Mac, she recognizes it.” 

“ _ S'il vous plaît, attendez _ .” She rushes to the back of the cafe and returns with a small envelope. “ _ On m'a dit de donner ceci à l'homme avec cette montre _ .” She holds it out to Mac.

“Someone told her to give this to the person wearing that watch,” Jack says. 

“Can you tell me anything about who left this?”  Mac asks. Jack translates that back, but the woman shakes her head, and he sees a glint of fear in her eyes. She hurries off and leaves them alone. 

Mac waits until a different waitress comes with his drink, then carefully steams the envelope open over the cup. He peels back the flap and pulls out a piece of paper. It’s a photograph, of Mac and James and a couple other men in front of a cabin somewhere in mountains. Jack wonders if this is one of those less than enjoyable camping trips. James’s hand looks heavy on Mac’s shoulder, and the kid in the picture has the same forced smile Jack’s seen far too often on Mac’s face now. 

Mac turns the picture over, but Jack’s already seen the back, there’s nothing written on it; this photo looks like it was developed by hand; it doesn’t have the date and time stamps or the logo of a film store. And the envelope is blank, cheap paper like the kind that you get with a pack of blank notecards in a dollar store rack, no way to determine where it came from. 

“It’s another clue.” Mac is staring at the picture like somehow that’s going to make this make sense.

“And that will lead to another clue, and that will lead to another clue. Come on Mac, I’ve seen this movie.”

Mac takes a sip of his coffee, grimaces, and sets it down, making a slightly disgusted face.  _ I knew nothing in here should be trusted.  _ “If you’re talking about the one with the treasure map on the Declaration of Independence, you know they eventually found the treasure, right?”

“Fine. But if James’s weird instructions ever involve violating homeland security protocols and stealing one of the most heavily guarded objects in the world, please tell me you’ll call it quits. Or, you know, let me help.”

Mac laughs. “We have a Riley, too, I’m pretty sure we could pull it off.”

“We probably could, at that.” Jack shakes his head, staring out the window at the rain that’s started to fall.  _ This feels more normal. Less like he’s trying to prove that I made a good choice accepting him as a son. _ And then his phone buzzes. 

“Hey Mac, it’s Matty. Something came up.” 

“Okay.” Mac stands up, stuffing the letter in his coat pocket. He sets the money for the coffee on the table, and the two of them step out into the driving storm.  

* * *

LOS ANGELES

CITY OF ANGELS

Mac pushes open his door, dropping his duffel bag and backpack right there in the hall. He feels exhausted, and all he wants to do right now is take a shower and sleep for a week.  _ Jack and I went straight from that cafe to meeting the team in London for an emergency. _ Three days, one runaway subway train, and a thwarted terrorist plot later, he’s ready to take a break.

_ Matty promised no missions for the next two days.  _ That’s probably partly because of sustained injuries, Riley is sporting a three-inch gash on her left arm and Jack threw out his shoulder again.  _ I feel kinda responsible for the shoulder, he dislocated it grabbing my arm before I went over the side of Tower Bridge into the Thames.  _

Mac hears the car back out of the driveway. Bozer’s only dropped him off, he’s on his way to pick Mickey up from Penny’s again. _ I hope he didn’t destroy another pair of her shoes. _ Penny’s been more than happy to look after the dog while they’re away, and she doesn’t ask a lot of questions about where they’ve gone to. Mac wonders sometimes if she knows a little more than she’s letting on.  _ Patty or Matty could have sat down with her at some point and made sure she knew I wasn’t just really blowing off the parole conditions. _ Because she was never anything but understanding any time he had to reschedule. 

He takes another step into the house and his foot splashes into water running over the floor.  _ Oh please tell me a pipe didn’t break. _ He’s not going to be happy if he not only has to repair something today, but also can’t take a shower because the water’s not working properly. _ I still feel gross from crawling around that dockyard trying to find the bomb crate. _

He follows the trail of water into the kitchen, to the antique refrigerator that’s been in this house probably since Harry built it. The water is clearly coming from underneath; the fridge’s chiller unit is broken and it’s leaking again. Mac groans, he doesn’t have time to deal with this right now.  _ I’ll just shut it off, shove some towels under it and come back in like ten hours.  _ At least it’s not as serious as a pipe.

He’s pretty sure Jack will show up at some point as soon as medical discharges him, probably worried about Mac being left alone for all of half an hour.  _ I didn’t fall off that bridge. I only almost fell off it. _ He’s not sure he’ll be awake when Jack does show up, but he scribbles a note on a piece of paper and leaves it on the table. 

**_The fridge is broken and I’m too tired to fix it right now, but there’s warm beer in there if you want it. I wouldn’t touch anything else though because I don’t know how long it’s been like that so the food inside might have spoiled. I’m sorry about your shoulder, I know you’re gonna say it’s not my fault so I’m gonna write it down so you can’t argue with me again. Sorry about your phone too. I’ll pay whatever replacement charge they’re asking for now._** He really wouldn’t have taken it if there was any other way, but his phone had been repurposed two days before to track a car, and he really did need Jack’s to stop the subway train. Jack insists that since his phone was used to save the royal family and everyone else at that hospital dedication from a bomb, he should get a knighthood or something, and Matty had to remind him that they’re not allowed to tell anyone what they were actually doing there. 

He ought to clean out the fridge and start letting it air out, but he’s too tired for that.  _ Sorry Bozer. I don’t mean to leave you with this mess.  _ He leaves a second note for Boze, this time on the fridge door.  **_I’ll help you clean this up when I wake up._ **

He’s headed for the hall closet and the extra towels to mop this mess up when he hears the doorbell.  _ That’s not Jack. _ Jack doesn’t even bother to  _ knock _ anymore, sometimes Mac just looks up and he’s  _ there. _ But it’s not as disconcerting as it used to be. Jack practically lives in this house anyway.  _ Did Bozer forget his key? Or teach Mickey a new trick? _

He’s too tired for this. He stumbles to the door, pulls it open, and has just enough time to register that those masked faces don’t belong to his roommate or his dog before there’s a sharp, electrifying pain in his shoulder and neck, and he falls backward, shaking, stiff from the shock. One of the masked intruders steps in and bends down next to him, and then the pain comes back and Mac’s already exhausted body slips into blackness. 

* * *

Jack gets rid of the sling the second he’s in the car. He’s had plenty of dislocated shoulders, he knows when it’s bad enough to warrant a sling. This one isn’t.

He wants to go home and crash for a week. But home right now means Mac’s house more often than not. He’s beginning to think he’s the roommate.  _ When Bozer goes off to spy school, maybe I should just move in, keep an eye on Mac. _ He can’t say it doesn’t seem like a good idea.  _ I know Mac keeps telling me he doesn’t need me being a helicopter parent, and for the most part that’s fine and I totally respect it. But some of the past few missions... _ They’ve reminded him that Mac has the deck stacked against him.  _ I know, I know, I’m a little paranoid.  _ But he’s never going to forget the looks in the eyes of the men at the garage, or the immediate assumptions made by those poker players. He’s still waking up from nightmares. 

The kid deserves so much better than that.  _ He deserves only the best in the world. _ He puts his life on the line day after day to protect people who will never even know it.  _ He’s a genuinely good person, and all the world does, time after time, is hurt him. _ Jack wants to prove that there’s at least one person in Mac’s life who is able to see and respect and love him the way he deserves.  _ I mean, I know the whole team cares about him, but none of them are really in a position to be fatherly. _ Matty and Patty are both fairly parental, but they’re also colder and more distant, by virtue of their positions and the decisions they need to make for the whole team and for missions. Mac needs someone he knows will always put his best interests first, no matter the cost. 

When he gets to the house, the door is slightly ajar.  _ Was he really too tired to even close it properly?  _ He knows Mac is the world’s dumbest genius and regularly forgets to lock his door even though there are sticky notes on it for that very reason, but lately he’s been more cautious.  _ Ever since that interview with Murdoc, I don’t think I’ve found his door unlocked once.  _

Jack’s senses are immediately on high alert. Bozer’s very distinctive little teal car is missing from the driveway, which means he’s not here. Probably dropped Mac off and went to get the dog.  _ Unlike the rest of us, he actually got some sleep on that op. _

Jack pulls his sidearm and pokes his head around the door. “Mac, hey Mac, are you in here?” He’ll feel like a fool if he clears the house and Mac’s crashed on the couch or something. But there’s no answer. 

Jack steps carefully inside, and his foot splashes loudly in a puddle of water he didn’t see on the floor. He cringes.  _ Where is that coming from? _

The note on the kitchen table, scrawled in handwriting that’s even less legible than Mac’s normal, is a bit more reassuring.  _ Okay, he probably just wandered in and crashed somewhere. _ But one after another, Mac’s bedroom, Bozer’s, the living room, and the guest room are all clear. Jack even checks the bathrooms to be sure Mac didn’t fall asleep in the shower.  _ He was pretty tired. _

He wanders out on the deck, wondering if Mac dozed off in a chair out there waiting for him to show up. And that’s when he sees it. Mac’s knife with the corkscrew jammed in the cork of an empty wine bottle, and a limp mask of George Washington’s face propped next to it. 

Jack brushes a finger over the engraving on the back of the knife; there’s no way to claim it’s not Mac’s. And the last he knew of Bozer’s mask of the Father of the Country, it had disappeared on the head of a master assassin who attacked Mac and Bozer in their own house.  _ Murdoc. _

* * *

Sam is just stepping out of the shower when her phone rings.  _ Damnit, Matty, you told me you’d give us at least two days.  _ She’s exhausted and she only just managed to get the horrible fishy smell from the dockyard out of her hair.  _ I would have fallen asleep the second I got through the door, but that smell was unbearable. _

She can’t imagine who else would be calling her right now. She’s finally managed to get her phone number out of every telemarketer database, with a little slightly illegal help from Riley.  _ Could be Patty. Maybe she wanted clarification on the section of the report that said ‘MacGyver disarmed the bomb with shoestrings and a subway pass card’.  _  And since Sam is the only one who was present at the scene and still has an operating phone, she might have been the first option. 

It’s not a number she recognizes. “Hello?” 

“Cage, it’s Jack.” He sounds like he’s on the verge of either yelling or crying. “Mac’s gone.”

“Gone? What do you mean?”

“I mean someone took him. When I got here, the door was partly open, and...he’s not here.” Sam feels a cold pit open up in her stomach, but she still needs to be the logical one.

“You’re sure? He’s not in the basement? He’s not fixing something and got too absorbed to hear you yell? He’s not aslee…” 

“No, Cage, someone took him. And I think it was Murdoc.” Jack stops, and his voice is muffled for a second, like he put his hand over the mouthpiece. “No, Mrs. Schwartz, it’s fine.” Sam guesses he must have used the neighbor’s phone to call since he hasn’t picked up his new one yet. “Nothing to worry about.” 

“I’m coming over. Now.” Cage’s exhaustion is as gone as if that shower she took was a frigidly cold one.  _ If Murdoc has Mac, I know exactly what he’s going to do to him. _ Sam remembers the stories from when she and Murdoc were on the same side of the law.  _ Most of his jobs, he killed the victims quickly, and often from a distance. But some of the younger men that he took contracts on were found raped, tortured, and killed slowly. I heard about one job he had that he took a week on. _ She’d never given much thought to it all before all this happened with Mac; she was never the type to mix business with anything that could be considered pleasure.  _ But Mac not only fits the victim profile, he also got away once.  _ Murdoc certainly won’t let that stand.  _ He was willing to help us try to keep Mac alive before, because he was in prison. But it was only because he wanted to kill Mac himself. _

When she gets to the house, Bozer is already there, and Mickey looks distraught, running around the entryway, sniffing the ground and whining. Jack and Bozer look like they’re equally frantic; Jack is pacing and glaring at nothing, and Bozer is sitting down only to get up and look around the room again. When she opens the door, both of them jump and Jack’s hand goes to his sidearm. When he sees her, he relaxes, a little, and the concern on his face takes a totally different form.  

“Okay, Jack, show me what you found.” Sam takes a deep breath and steels herself to be the logical, rational one here.  _ Murdoc scares me, and that’s not something I say lightly. But I’m also the one who understands him best.  _ She’s gotten inside his mind once already, even if he managed to do the same to her.  _ He’s focused, obsessed. Mac is his weak point, he was less protective of information when I brought him into the conversation. It makes sense, that he would risk being caught to get his hands on Mac. _ She listened to the tapes Matty has of the interrogation room sessions.  _ What he wanted to do… _ The sooner they find Mac, the better. 

“It’s right out-” Jack cuts off as the door opens and spins around, half raising his gun. 

“Whoa, Jack, it’s just me!” Riley holds up her hands placatingly. “I came as soon as I heard.” 

Jack sighs, holstering his gun and rubbing a hand over his face.  _ He’s exhausted and on edge, he’s overreacting to everything.  _ “I’m sorry, Ri. It’s just…”

“Murdoc.” Riley nods, she looks almost as devastated as Jack. 

“Check every traffic cam in this neighborhood. One of them has to have found something.” Riley nods and sits down with her computer immediately. 

Jack leads Sam out onto the deck, where there’s a wine bottle sitting on the table and a mask propped beside it. Sam flinches. She saw the crime scene photos from the last time Murdoc was in Mac’s house, and she read through Mac and Bozer’s accounts of the incident thoroughly. She knows the mask and the wine bottle would mean nothing to anyone except the assassin. 

She glances up at Jack; his face is the most distraught she’s ever seen. And she saw him on Riley’s surveillance during the Bishop Prison op. _ The situation isn’t so different. Mac taken by someone who definitely means him harm, no real way to track him down. _ But Jack is far more attached now.

Mickey whines, shoving himself under her arm. Sam gently pushes him back, rubbing his nose and trying to reassure him. “Hey, hey, we gotta keep him away from this. In case we get any prints.”

“There won’t be any.” Jack sighs, dragging a hand over his face. “Sam, I just missed him. I just missed him. He might have driven past me. Mac could have been right there. I might have seen the car…”

“Jack. This was not your fault.”

“Then whose fault is it? Cause it damn sure ain’t Mac’s.” Sam doesn’t know what to say to him. 

The door slams open again, and Cage glances over to see both Matty and Patty walking through. They look absolutely deadly. “Bag, tag, and photograph everything,” Matty says coldly. “Until we know exactly what happened here and who we’re dealing with, nothing is to be overlooked.” 

“This is definitely Murdoc,” Jack says. 

“He might as well have signed his name,” Sam adds. “Mac’s knife in a wine bottle, and that George Washington mask he used when he attacked Mac and Bozer last time.” 

“Yeah, and that’s the same bottle Mac used to knock him out the window,” Bozer says. “I almost died that night, I don’t think I could forget any of the details.” 

Cage knows Matty wasn’t here for the initial encounter with the psycho. But Patty was, and from the look on her face, she’s come to the same conclusion they all have.  _ Murdoc came here to finish the job. _

Riley looks up from her computer. “Okay, I scanned all the footage. Eight cars drove out of this neighborhood around the time Mac was taken. A DMV search gives us names and addresses on seven of the license plates.”

“And the eighth?” Matty asks. 

“According to the DMV, that license plate won't even be issued for another six months.”

“That’s him,” Jack says. “It has to be.”

Riley’s typing frantically. “Okay...okay...I’ve got a hit. It’s parked outside a warehouse in Sylmar.” 

Cage doesn’t like the look in Jack’s eyes as he rushes for the door.  _ He’s going to get Mac back or die trying. _

* * *

SOMEWHERE

UNKNOWN AMOUNT OF TIME HAS PASSED

When Mac wakes up, his first thought is that he’s cold. He blinks a few times, but wherever he is, it’s pitch black, and he can’t see anything. His eyes are slowly starting to adjust to the room, but it’s taking longer than usual. He’s so tired, he just wants to go back to sleep, but he knows he can’t because he shouldn’t sleep here. This isn’t safe.

The floor is damp and chilly against his feet, he can already tell someone’s taken his shoes and socks. His wrists are cold too, the kind of cold he’s all too familiar with. Handcuffs on his arms. He tugs against the cuffs, even though he knows it’s useless, and his arm flares with a sudden sharp pain. He looks down to see a needle there, attached to a line that blurs in and out of focus as his eyes follow it up to a suspended IV. 

He glances down at his cuffed hands and notices something else; his belt, instead of being buckled in the front, is now buckled past the first loop to the left.  _ No, no, no. _ He tries to force his fuzzy, incoherent thoughts to focus.  _ I don’t feel like...like someone did anything.  _ He’s all too familiar with the aftereffects and he’s not aware of any...or he’s just too drugged to feel them. 

There’s a sudden flash of brilliance and Mac flinches.  _ What... _ A bare lightbulb over his head has just switched on.  _ This just went from bad to worse. _ Someone is coming. 

He doesn’t know who has him, but anything is going to be bad. And then there’s a soft whistle from the stairs, and he cringes, feeling ice creeping through his veins along with the drug.  _ No, please, no, no, no. _ He wants this to be a nightmare. He wants to wake up. He wants it to be like every other time this has happened in his mind.  _ Please, please, let me wake up. _

“Oh MacGyver, how I have missed you.” Murdoc’s voice is an eerie, hungry purr. Mac sighs, letting his head drop.  _ This time, there’s no way to escape.  _

Murdoc bends down over him, and Mac instinctively attempts to flinch away.  _ Don’t touch me! _ He wants to shout but all that comes out is a muffled mumble that sounds nothing like what he means to say, and Murdoc’s gloved hands run coldly up his arms. 

The needle twisting in his skin is a sharp flare of pain. It’s almost a relief, in a way.  _ If I can feel that it hurts, I would be able to feel if he... _

“Oh, good, you can still feel pain. Setting the dose was...tricky. I had to give you enough to slow you down, but not so much you passed out.” Murdoc walks across the room, grabs a second chair from the corner, and pulls it over, the legs screeching and scraping on the concrete floor. Mac winces. The sound feels deafening and he has no idea if that’s just because of the echoes in the room or because of whatever drug is running into his veins. 

“Why are you doing this?” He whispers.

Murdoc leans forward in the chair, steepling his fingers and staring directly into Mac’s eyes. “You see, I want something from you.”

“I’m not going to tell you where Cassian is.” Mac already knows that’s not at all Murdoc’s intention, but pretending is the only defense he has left. Stalling the inevitable. 

“Oh, I already know that, Angus. But I do think you could be...persuaded.” This time, his hand gently slides along Mac’s jaw instead of twisting the needle in his arm. Mac turns away in disgust. “I am a reasonable man. I would be willing to settle for one of two things I want from you, and if you give me Cassian’s location, I will release you unharmed. This time.” He shrugs. “If not…” The direction of his stare is all too clear. 

“No you won’t.” 

Murdoc leans back in his chair, sighing. “I’m wounded, MacGyver. I told you, I’m a man of my word. But you seem determined not to trust any deal I offer.” 

“You’ll do whatever you want, so get on with it. I’m not giving you any information about Cassian.”  _ I can’t save myself, but I can keep anyone else as far from this monster as possible. _ “I’m not going to let you hurt him too.”

Murdoc’s face actually registers disgust. Or at least that’s the impression Mac is getting, it’s hard to tell in the shadowy room. “You think I would do that? To my own flesh and blood?”

“You don’t care for anything or anyone. You’re incapable of love.” It may not be wise to rile Murdoc up, but Mac would almost prefer that Murdoc act on anger, and not lust.  _ If all he does is torture me, it would be better. _

“Possibly. But I do prefer living, and I would rather my son not murder me in my bed one night.” Mac shudders at both the cold, calculating logic, and the insinuation that this is spoken from personal experience.  _ James was cruel, but he never crossed that line.  _

“Then why could you possibly want him? He’s never going to want to be with you, not when he learns who you really are.”

“Oh, I strongly disagree. I would think you of all people would understand, MacGyver. Sons need their fathers; you are living proof of that.” 

“Not when their fathers are monsters.” Mac shivers. He’s never met Murdoc’s son in person, but he feels a strange kind of protectiveness over the boy, like Cassian is a younger sibling. Maybe because he and Cassian share at least one thing in common. An absent, psychotic, dangerous father.  

“Oh, so you flew all the way to Paris just to hunt down a monster?” Murdoc chuckles. “You may have Dalton and your precious little team fooled, but you know the real reason you’re chasing dear old dad is because you’re incomplete without him.” Murdoc stands up. “All your life you’ve had to hide that dark side he gave you, keep it locked away or you’ll be punished for it. But with him, you could set it free. We all inherit something from our families, and we can only deny that for so long.” 

“I’m not him. And I don’t want to be.” Mac doesn’t want to be reminded of his greatest fear, of the thought that someday, he might end up just like his father. 

Murdoc only smiles. “But you needed him, and he wasn’t there. When people punished you for being like him, he could have saved you. But he never came for you. He left you so alone, so...unprotected.” Murdoc leans in close, his hand resting purposefully over the inside of Mac’s thigh. Mac swallows, shuddering. “Maybe there is one difference. Maybe now I see why you can’t understand. Because Cassian has a father who is looking for him as we speak, while it seems yours wants nothing to do with you.”

“That’s not true.”

“Oh, you mean the clues.” Murdoc smiles. “Tests, designed to prove that you’re worth the effort of his time. That he should want you.” His smile gets even wider. “But Cassian has never had to prove he is worth my attention. And neither do you, for that matter.” He pulls out a knife from his belt and steps up slowly. “Unlike dear old dad, I appreciate the simple fact that you exist.” Murdoc glances at him, twirling the knife. “I find you truly fascinating. But you know what I’ve wondered, since we last talked? What keeps me up at night?” Mac shakes his head, he doesn’t want to know. “I want to know what it sounds like when you  _ scream. _ ” And then the knife is digging in, slicing down his chest. Mac grits his teeth against the pain; he’s had worse. He’s not going to give Murdoc the satisfaction as long as he can help it. Murdoc simply clicks his tongue. “You’re only going to make this harder on yourself, Angus.”

“What can I say, I’m stubborn,” Mac mumbles snarkily. He doesn’t have Jack to be the sassy one this time, and he misses it.  _ I feel a little better feeling like there’s some part of him here.  _

“Oh, I see. You think if you can stall long enough Papa Bear Jack is coming for you. It’s sad, really, the way you latch onto him for protection. Just because your real father wasn’t there to save you.” He shakes his head. “I told you, sons need a father in their lives. Otherwise they grow up searching for someone else to protect them, someone else to fight their battles for them. But I assure you, he won’t be able to do it this time. We are quite well hidden, Angus. It’s just you and me.”

* * *

Murdoc watches a few drops of blood trickle off the end of his knife and smiles. Of course, for what he wants today, he can’t do as much damage as he would like.  _ I need to leave him able to walk away. No broken bones...this time. _ He swallows down the thought of how wonderful it would be to get a real scream, a hoarse one that shattered itself and broke off in sobs, out of Angus.  _ But he’s stubborn, and anything I did to make him scream like that would be too much. _

He regrets that he needs to work so quickly; that he hasn’t had time to enjoy MacGyver the way he wants to.  _ But unfortunately, I couldn’t take him out of Los Angeles, not for what I need him to do this time.  _ Contrary to what he lets Angus and his team believe, he really does have a life, with plenty of things that concern him.  _ MacGyver just happens to be quite high on the list of those things.  _

He licks his lips at the thought of the things he would do if he truly had no other agenda than getting Angus to give up Cassian’s location. He’s been dreaming of them since that meeting in the junkyard, and the interrogations when he was in prison only made him want this more. But those are distractions, right now, from the main thing he needs.  _ After the Phoenix froze all my accounts, I’ve been forced to start over.  _ Riley, the pesky little hacker, even found the ones he buried under piles of fake cover IDs and shell companies.  _ And taking care of Cassian is going to require more than the resources from a stash site or two. _ He needs to start over, and he knows exactly how he’s going to do it.  _ It took a team to take me down, last time. But I wonder what they’ll do if they’re faced with another one? _

“I’ve waited so long for this,” he says, deliberately peeling off one glove, then the other. Angus watches him, wide-eyed. The barely suppressed terror there is absolutely beautiful. “We’ve been so  _ close, _ and yet we’ve never really  _ touched. _ ” He tosses the gloves to the floor and runs his fingers up the bloodied line he’s left on Angus’s chest before cupping his face in his hand. He works hard to ignore the warm thrill of desire that stabs through him at the feel of Angus’s blood under his hand, at the touch of his skin.  _ Another time _ . 

The boy’s skin is just as warm and soft as it has always been in Murdoc’s imagination. He tries to pull away, but Murdoc digs his fingers in, a stern warning, and MacGyver stops struggling. But the terror in his eyes is undeniable now. Murdoc rubs a thumb gently over Angus’s cheekbone, enjoying the contrast of fresh blood and pale skin.  _ He’s perfect. _ He lets a finger trail down the boy’s throat, smiling when he feels the convulsive swallow there. 

“Oh, you have no idea how long I’ve dreamed of this,” he says quietly, letting his hand rest on the exposed portion of MacGyver’s chest and savoring the warmth and the erratic rise and fall as the boy draws shuddering, gasping breaths. “Or maybe you do. I’m sure you of all people can understand how  _ long _ the days are in a little empty room by yourself. How desperately you search for something to fill that time.” Angus shivers harder. “But you made every one of those long days and cold, cold nights bearable.” Shame and anger are flooding the boy’s face in equal parts, and it’s wonderful. 

Murdoc pulls back, smiling at the crimson handprint now smeared across MacGyver’s cheek and jaw.  _ He’s so much more beautiful when he’s broken. _ But he needs to focus on why they’re both really here. He reaches for the knife again. It’s a different kind of pleasure, a sharper one, but all he can afford today. 

He traces the knife lightly across Angus’s cheek, leaving only a line of the still-dripping blood that’s on the knife. He’s not particularly keen on damaging his pretty face, not yet. He just wants to watch him shudder. His next movement goes deeper, a cut across the collarbone visible through the unbuttoned top of MacGyver’s now tattered shirt. 

It would be fun, he thinks, to call the Phoenix and do whatever he wanted to the boy while they were forced to watch, but that would make them a little too focused on finding  _ him, _ and knowing Riley, she’d find a way around his encryptions far too quickly for his liking. It will have to be enough to imagine what happens when Jack sees the wounds he’s left.  _ Nothing serious, sadly, they probably won’t even scar.  _ He’d so enjoy watching Dalton threaten helplessly, only able to watch.  _ But another time, another time. _ He can’t break Angus so far that he shatters. 

Murdoc needs him to be intact enough to follow the trail he plans on leaving.  _ Of course, they’ll still think they’re tracking me down. But they’ll be a little less determined to annihilate me from the face of the earth. _ He’s playing the long game, this time.  _ In the end, I’ll have MacGyver in my hands, and they truly will be helpless to stop me. _

He needs to be careful, or he won’t be able to help himself.  _ I can’t afford to lose control, not this time. Angus certainly wouldn’t be able to walk then. _ But he can still get some enjoyment out of this. Something to make his dreams just that much more vivid. 

Moving the belt and taking Angus’s shoes, he thinks, was a simple stroke of genius.  _ I certainly didn’t have time to go through the trouble of actually stripping him, and if I had, he wouldn’t have his clothes back now. _ And that would have led to other things, things Murdoc can’t afford this time around. 

Still, he can enjoy MacGyver’s confusion.  _ He’ll never know what I’ve done to him. And he’ll wonder, and dream of  _ me, _ the way I dream of him. _ Knowing that, knowing what he’s turned himself into inside of the boy’s head, is almost enough consolation for the knowledge that today will leave him unsatisfied.  _ It truly is a shame, to be this close and have him at my mercy, and do nothing. _ Patience isn’t a virtue Murdoc has ever been very familiar with. Neither is self-control. 

But he won’t leave totally empty-handed. He’s wanted to know for weeks now what Angus’s scars look like up close; he has a truly  _ stunning _ collection of them. He might as well take the opportunity to find out. 

* * *

“There  _ is _ more than one way to make you scream.” Mac shivers.  _ No, please, don’t do this to me. _ Murdoc’s hands are almost careful, as he runs the knife up the sleeve of the shirt. The blade scratches against his skin, but Mac can tell it’s a planned movement, that Murdoc intends to make him bleed, but not seriously. The sharp blade slices through the cloth easily as Murdoc continues shredding his already torn clothes, and Mac flinches and shudders when Murdoc pulls the material away. The damp air is cold on his skin, but Murdoc’s hungry gaze is even more chilling. There’s no disguising the desire in his eyes.

The man’s hand slides down Mac’s thigh and he shudders. He wants out, he wants Jack to come find him...but what if he doesn’t make it in time?  _ Jack always comes for you. _ But Murdoc says they’re too well hidden.  _ Is he right? That I always rely on someone else to save me because of what James did? _ That’s not true, it’s not. Murdoc is just twisting everything good and making it into something to hate.  _ I don’t run crying to Jack to protect me. I just know he’s going to be there. I can protect myself, but he doesn’t want me to have to. He wants to be there. _ Mac isn’t a burden, he’s not.

He flinches away from Murdoc’s hands, pushing his legs tightly together, thankful they’re not chained to the chair as well.  _ He hasn’t been very thorough... _ But maybe Murdoc just wants the challenge of letting Mac fight back a little. He learned a long time ago some people were sick enough to enjoy someone who struggled, who tried to stop them. 

“Oh, it’s so much more fun when you’re awake for it.” Mac flinches at the implication.  _ Would he really have taken my clothes just to replace them again so that he got to watch my reactions the second time he stripped me? _ But he can’t deny that Murdoc could easily be just that twisted.  _ And my shoes and socks are gone, and my belt is buckled to the side instead of in front. _ It would have been easy for Murdoc to replace his clothing exactly the same as he removed it, but taking the shoes and moving that belt buckle is intentional.  _ He wants me to know what he did to me...or to think he did it. _ Murdoc might have only done those few things, knowing Mac is confused enough by the drugs to have no idea what actually happened...

A slap to his face jolts him out of his frantic attempts to figure out what’s been done to him. “Wakey wakey, sleepy Angus!” Murdoc licks his lips, pacing around Mac like a lion watching its meal. “I told you, the last time we met, that I wished I could see your scars, but I never expected this...masterpiece.” His smile is full of sick fascination. Mac wants this to stop, but at the same time he’s oddly grateful Murdoc has stopped tearing away his clothes to go on a random monologue about his scars.  _ If he’s focused on something else, maybe I can get an advantage. _ Murdoc has tucked his knife back into his belt for the time being, and if he gets close enough Mac might be able to get his hands on it. It would be a pitiful defense against whatever Murdoc has planned, but if he catches the man off guard, he might be able to inflict a serious enough injury that Murdoc would need to leave to take care of it. _ And then I might be able to get out.  _

“This one is exquisite.” Murdoc’s hand hovers over the diamond-shaped mark on Mac’s shoulder. “Certainly deeper than most of the rest. And judging by the scar, it didn’t heal very well. I wonder, does it still ache?” The next moment he’s jabbing deep into the center of the scar with two fingers. 

Mac winces. Murdoc is right, that’s the deep wound that didn’t heal well, the one he first went to Carlos to have treated. It still aches if he’s cold or if the weather is damp, even though at this point the dull pain is simply a familiar and normal part of his life. 

“Oooh,” Murdoc’s voice changes as his hand skims downward to Mac’s side. “So, the Boy Scout isn’t as perfect as he would like everyone to believe.” Mac knows he’s looking at the narrow white lines.  _ He’s right. Sometimes that seems like the most shameful thing to admit to anyone. Even more than what they did to me in prison.  _ Because it’s one thing for someone else to have hurt him. It’s another for it to have happened by his own hand. He hadn’t wanted Jack to see those scars, ever.  _ All they are is a reminder that I made mistakes, and people died. That I failed. _

Murdoc continues running his hands over Mac’s chest and arms, stopping to examine each of the faint white and brown and pink lines and raised knotted scars. Mac remembers all the stories behind them, from the burn on his shoulder when he didn’t get out of the way of one of his own bombs in time, to the surgical scars on his stomach that have been there since that disastrous crash in Kazakhstan this spring. 

He can’t stop shivering, both from how cold this room is with his shirt gone, and from the light touch when Murdoc’s bloodstained fingers brush his skin.  _ It feels wrong for him to be so gentle.  _ Mac thinks he preferred it when the man was torturing him. He can’t help but wonder what this is all leading up to, and it can’t possibly be good.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity but is likely actually only a few more minutes, Murdoc steps back. Mac risks a glance at his eyes, and there’s something unreadable there, almost regret. Mac’s mind is too foggy to try and process what that means. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go...prepare my tools.” The way he says it, Mac’s sure that these “tools” aren’t the kind of torture instruments Murdoc typically uses. And there’s no doubt at all in Mac’s mind of what he plans to do when he comes back. 

* * *

Jack still can’t believe this is happening.  _ This is a nightmare. I’m going to wake up, right? _ He can’t believe that sick, psychotic man has Mac at his mercy.  _ This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen. _

He’s afraid Riley’s lead is too easy, too simple for Murdoc. Last time they tracked down one of his vehicles, it was a trap and Patty took a bullet in the arm. She and Sam have both followed him out to the GTO, Jack is pretty sure Patty still wants to get even for that shot.  _ And whether she’ll admit it or not, she’s got a giant soft spot for Mac.  _

“Cage, how much ammo you got?” He already knows Patty has four.  _ Ever since Morocco, she always carries an extra backup. _

“Same as usual, three mags. One in the gun, two in the belt.” 

“Stay sharp. Last time, he pinned us down.” Jack knows she knows that, but it makes him feel a little better to be giving orders like this is any other op. Like he might actually be in control of something instead of just watching the world fall apart around him. 

He jumps in the car and jams it in reverse, only to hit the brakes when he sees the figure in the rearview. Bozer is standing the the middle of the driveway, blocking his exit.

“Boze, what the hell are you doing?”

“I’m coming with you.”

“The hell you are. It’s too dangerous.”

“And Mac is right there in the middle of it.” Bozer shakes his head. “I survived Murdoc once already.”

“So let’s not push the luck! Get back in that house.”

“Like that’s any safer! Jack, if you want me to stay behind, you’re gonna have to shoot me. Short of that, get in the car and drive.”

“We’re wasting time,” Cage and Patty say nearly in unison.  _ I know, damn it, I know! _

“Fine!” Jack pulls the seat forward so Boze can get in the back with Sam. “But when the bullets start flying I can’t be worried about watching Mac’s back and your tiny ass at the same time. So you stay behind me or Patty or Cage the whole time, you got it?” 

“Cross my heart and hope to…” Bozer stops. “Right, bad choice of words.” 

Jack follows Riley’s directions to the warehouse, and pulls over about a block away. No sense in announcing their presence, even though he’s sure Murdoc is probably long gone. Riley’s scanned the area, and it looks like there’s no technology active.  _ He’s not planning on trapping us with remote-control rifles again.  _

There’s no guarantee the man isn’t hidden somewhere in there, but Jack has the feeling that he’s not. “Hey Sam, what’s your read?”

“He’s long gone,” she says. “I would be. Last time, he trapped you to get to Mac. This time, he already has him. There’s no reason to bait a trap.” Jack knows she’s just doing her job, what he asked her to, but the thought is sickening.  _ I’d rather be in danger than have Mac out there somewhere in the wind with that monster.  _ Murdoc could be planning on leaving the country with him.  _ We might never see him again.  _

Jack pushes the front door open, it swings easily. Jack’s never a fan of already open doors. He moves slowly through the building, taking the center wing while Cage and Patty fan out to each side of him. He can hear Bozer walking behind him, and the echoing footsteps are sort of creepy. “I’m clear here,” he calls.

“Same here,” Cage shouts. 

“I’ve got something.” Jack rushes over to where Patty is kneeling next to two bodies. She looks up at him. “They  _ were _ like this when I found them.”  _ Good to see she hasn’t forgotten Ceylon. _ Patty’s always been one hell of a field agent, and Jack is deeply grateful she’s here now.  _ She has more experience than even I do.  _ If anyone’s capable of tracking down that psycho, it’s a combination of Patty’s field skills, Cage’s creepy knowledge of Murdoc’s mind games, Riley’s ability to seemingly pull leads out of thin air, or at least the wireless signals in it, and Jack and Bozer’s bulldog determination to bring Mac home.  

“This is doornail dead, right here,” Jack says. “Double tap to the back. Execution style.” 

“He was tying up loose ends,” Cage says. 

“Only way three can keep a secret is if two of them are dead,” Bozer mumbles. 

Jack bends down next to a puddle on the floor that isn’t blood. “Looks like he had a getaway car in here, with a nasty oil leak. Riley, is there any way to get eyes on this building between...Patty, you got a guess on the time those guys were shot?”

“A little less than two hours ago, I would say.” She glances up at him. 

“Okay, an hour before and after, that’s our window.”

“There’s no cameras focused on the warehouse itself, it’s been abandoned since the nineties. But there is a building across the street with a camera that just might have a wide enough angle to catch the garage.” 

Jack paces impatiently, waiting for Riley to work her magic.  _ I know she can’t possibly work any faster than she already is, but it still feels like it’s taking forever. _ “I’ve got something,” Riley sounds triumphant. “A black four door sedan pulled out of there and headed north. I’m tracing its route now.” 

“Keep us posted.” Jack hurries to the car.

Riley’s voice in his ear directs him along Murdoc’s route. He’s stuck to side streets, for the most part, and Jack is more than a little confused at the erratic pattern.  _ Where was he going?  _ “Okay, the car turned left. Up ahead. And then I lost it. It’s not on the next intersection cam, and I even hacked the ATM security of a bank a block from there and it doesn’t show up. So it’s somewhere in that general area.”

“Okay, guys, fan out. Let’s find that car.” Jack parks and climbs out. This is a random business district, full of shoddy restaurants, sketchy pawn shops, and a laundromat that judging by the clientele launders a little more than some mismatched socks. 

It doesn’t take too long to find the vehicle they’re looking for. The car is parked in a blind alley. “He never left?” Jack asks. 

“Not that I can see. That pawnshop has security cams, but they never caught him leaving the alley. The restaurant must have an old VHS tape system, so unless you want to walk in there and convince a guy who looks like he might be fronting for the Italian mob to let you look at his security footage, you’re out of luck.” 

He tries the doors of both buildings that open onto the alley, which are tightly locked, and glances at the wall behind them.  _ Would they have climbed?  _ He knows Mac would never have gone willingly; and Murdoc probably wouldn’t have been able to carry him if he had to freeclimb those walls.  _ I’m thinking way too complicated. There has to be a simpler explanation.  _ They can’t have just vanished into thin air.

“Jack.” Patty is kneeling beside a manhole cover. “This was lifted recently. There are rust marks on the pavement from a prybar.” Sam joins her, rubbing her fingers against the marks and showing Jack the smears of color left behind.  _ LA had rain last night, that’s happened since then.  _

“No wonder he vanished.” Jack shakes his head. “Looks like we’re going down.” 

* * *

Mac shivers. The light is still on, and every shadow seems to be peeling itself off the wall, turning into Murdoc, and wandering over to leer at him. He’s trying not to black out, it seems like the drug is kicking in stronger now, probably because of how long it’s been running into his body. He has to get away before Murdoc comes back, because once he does…

_ No, don’t think about that. Think about how you’re going to get out of here.  _ Mac glances around the room, his normal ability to catalog possible resources is fading in and out of focus.  _ Door, chair, IV, handcuffs… _ It’s all being drowned out in a desperate panicked litany of  _ I have to get out, I have to get away from him, please, don’t let him come back. _

Something about this whole situation feels wrong. Even more wrong than being cuffed to a chair and waiting for an obsessed madman to come back for him.  _ He’s very, very confident no one is going to find me, if he’s taking this much time.  _ Mac’s surprised Murdoc is dragging this out so long, but maybe he enjoys playing with his food.  _ He did wait until the last session of the interrogation before he asked for that lap dance.  _ The man is playing some kind of twisted game, and unless Mac can get himself out, he’s going to learn exactly why it’s taking Murdoc so long to come back. 

_ Murdoc was right about one thing. I can’t rely on anyone else to save me now. I have to save myself.  _ Mac leans over, catching the needle in his teeth and pulling. It hurts, a fiery stabbing pain, but this is the only way he’s going to be able to get out. 

He drops the needle into one hand and gets to work picking the cuffs. It takes longer than it should, his hands are shaking and his vision is so blurry. He’s terrified that any second Murdoc is going to come back and find him trying to escape. Finally the cuffs fall free with a clatter that makes him wince.  _ If he heard that... _

He can’t afford to wait to find out if Murdoc is coming.  _ If he finds me, he finds me. _ Mac will simply have to accept whatever punishment Murdoc decides to mete out.  _ Nothing can be much worse than what’s already coming. _ He stumbles up to the door, but it is locked, with a deadbolt that only latches from the outside. He can’t pick it, and he doesn’t have the strength to try and lever it open, even though the IV stand...and then he hears the pipes hissing next to him, and a few of those scattered pieces of information start to float together, so much more slowly than normal, but still beginning to form a plan.

_ IV stand...steam pipes...I might be able to make a sort of jackhammer out of that, to pop that lock.  _ He works as quickly as he can, steam scalding his hands and arms as he detaches the pipes and attaches them to his homemade jackhammer.  _ I only get one shot at this, and if I did it wrong it could blow up in my face.  _ He can’t find the energy to worry. 

There’s another horrible clatter as the lock breaks away from the door, and Mac cringes. He drags himself up the stairs and leans against the door until it opens. He stumbles out into a room that’s bigger and a little brighter than the last one. 

He looks around, wishing the room would stop spinning.  _ How do I get out? _ And then he hears footsteps. Murdoc is coming back, he’s going to find him...Mac stumbles along until he finds a door that opens under his hand. It’s just a closet, with a hole in the floor that leads down into darkness. He huddles in a corner of it, hoping that Murdoc won’t look here.  _ But he’ll see the lock, he’ll know I got away. _ He doesn’t want to go back to the dark and the cold, but it’s his only way out.

He starts to climb down the rungs of the metal ladder that lead down into the hole, but the metal is slimy and slick and he’s shaky. He loses his grip halfway down and plunges into the six inches of water at the bottom of what feels like part of the storm drain system.  _ It rained last night, there’s more water than usual.  _

He struggles to his feet, cringing at the smell and the thought that that filthy water is getting in his cuts and scrapes. It’s cold, too, and he shivers, wrapping his arms around himself and starting to walk. He doesn’t care much where he’s going, only that he wants to get as far from Murdoc as possible. 

The bottom of the pipe is covered in grit and debris, and a few times when he walks under the light from a grating he feels something prickly that he thinks might be dropped keys. His feet ache, for the few minutes before they go numb from the chilly water. He keeps walking, stumbling, falling, dragging himself to his feet again. 

There’s a rattling of footsteps from somewhere behind him, and he starts to shake.  _ No, no, don’t let him find me! _ He starts to run, the best he can when the world is swaying and blurring, taking random turns down random tunnels. 

“Oh MacGyver, come out and pla-ay,” Murdoc calls, and the terrifying light tone in his voice makes Mac shiver. Mac can only imagine what’s waiting for him if Murdoc catches him. 

He has to get out of these tunnels. Down here, Murdoc can follow the noise he’s surely making, and they’re all alone. He can take Mac right back to the room he just escaped, and no one will know.  _ Above ground, people will at least see me. Maybe eventually somehow Jack will find out.  _

He finds a ladder that leads up to a manhole, and scrambles up it desperately, praying his numb feet and shaky hands don’t fail him. If he falls now, Murdoc will find him, it will all be over. He can barely force himself to let go of the ladder to push the manhole cover aside with one hand.

He drags himself over the edge, pulling himself onto the ground next to the hole. There’s so much light and noise and it’s overwhelming. 

He stumbles to his feet, blinking at the bright sunlight. He can hear people yelling but it’s all blurry, and he can’t really see anything. He hears horns and sees large dark shapes of cars moving past him, and he can feel the wind from the movement. He’s in the road and he needs to get out of it.

He hears a horn blaring, louder than the other ones, and people screaming, and then he sort of feels like he’s flying...and everything goes black again.

* * *

SEWER TUNNELS

SOMEWHERE UNDER LOS ANGELES

“This is a maze,” Sam whispers. Her voice echoes. 

“Look around. Mac must have left us some kind of clue.” Jack knows this is grasping at straws. Mac was probably unconscious. But maybe there’s something here that can tell them where he was taken. 

To their credit, Patty and Cage don’t argue with him. They continue the same way he is, searching the walls, kicking their feet through the layer of water from last night’s storm. Cage finds a rusty key and Patty unearths a destroyed watch, but neither of them are Mac’s. 

He’s not sure how long it’s been when Sam stops kicking around through the grit and garbage and walks back over to him. He already knows from the look in her eyes what she’s going to say. “Jack, listen to me. This trail’s gone cold. There’s no hope of finding them down here now. We have to try this another way.” 

She’s right, there’s nothing here that can help them. But Jack can’t accept defeat, not this easily. “I can’t leave him with that monster, Cage.”

“No one is asking you to. But you can’t help him if you wander around in the sewers for the rest of your life.” 

The ride back to Phoenix is deadly silent. Even Bozer doesn’t comment on the rank smell in the car from the sewer water their shoes are still soaked with. When they get back, Riley and Matty are already in the War Room, sorting through photos of Mac’s house.  _ I was so close to being there. If I’d insisted he not leave until I was ready to go with him... _ He knows Mac wouldn’t have liked that, but it would be better than this.  _ I’m not letting him out of my sight again. _ He refuses to think that maybe he won’t have that chance. 

Jack can’t stand around in the War Room and do nothing. “Patty, I gotta go after him. I gotta find him.”

She hands him a phone, apparently they finally got around to getting him a new one. “We’ll call you if we find anything.” She knows he can’t sit around here. It’s like the time Riley went off the grid in Nepal. He wouldn’t stop until he got her back. Patty knows he’ll do anything for his family. 

He’s going back to the area where they found the car. Maybe there’s something there they overlooked, even the faintest possible lead.

If he’s being honest with himself, it’s just an excuse to get away from the useless busyness in the War Room. Everyone is trying to be helpful, and everyone is looking at him with pity.  _ Stop acting like he’s gone for good. We’re gonna get him back. _ But the question is what condition they’re getting him back in. 

_ If Murdoc’s so much as touched a hair on Mac’s head, I’m going to tear him limb from limb. _ That psycho already haunts Mac’s dreams; this is only going to make it a million times worse.  _ And if he actually...if he… _ Jack can’t imagine what that will do to Mac. 

He’s pushing seventy on a fifty speed limit street when the call comes in. It’s Patty, and he hits speaker phone, unwilling to pull over to wait to listen. 

But when he hears what Patty says, he slams on the brakes and pulls to the side of the road. “We’ve intercepted a 911 call with a victim matching Mac’s description, who apparently climbed out of a manhole, acting disoriented, and was hit by a car.” 

“What?” He can’t believe this is happening.  _ NO, no, no. _

“The accident itself wasn’t bad, but apparently he’s incoherent.” Patty’s voice is strained. “We’re sending a Phoenix ambulance to avoid having him taken to a public hospital, but you’re closer than the ambulance is.”  _ Oh thank God. _ Jack lets out a deep breath and rests his head on the steering wheel. 

“Get me that address, right now.” The text is already pinging. He loads it to his navigation app that Riley hacked and updated to make it show less than legal shortcuts. 

Jack’s phone is beeping with a second call. It’s a number he doesn’t know, and he sincerely hopes it’s not Murdoc.  _ What if that wasn’t Mac in the 911 call? What if Murdoc set up some elaborate fake to lure us… _

“J-j-jack?” The voice on the other end of the phone is weak and shaky, but it’s definitely Mac. “Please, Jack, come get me. Please.” 

“Okay kid, where are you?”

“I don’t know...it’s a road...there was a car, it hurts, I want to go home.” He’s clearly drugged and disoriented. 

“I’m coming right now, Mac, just hold on, okay? I’m gonna come get you, it’s okay, it’s gonna be fine, I’m coming.” He peels out and now he’s going eighty in a fifty zone.  _ Nothing matters except getting Mac back.  _

* * *

The world comes back in bits and pieces. Sunlight. Car horns. Gritty concrete. Hands on his arms...no, no, no, no, he can’t...not those hands. He thinks he might have yelled, because someone says something soft, calming. “It’s alright, you need to lie still, we’re getting an ambulance, it’s alright.’

Mac flinches.  _ No, get away. Leave me alone. _ Every touch on his bare skin feels like it burns. He wants them to put something over him, to cover him up. He can hear them gasping when they see the cuts and notice the old scars. He hears someone whisper, “oh the poor boy” and another one snap something about “self destructive junkies”. 

“No, please, don’t. Please.” He shoves at the hands.  _ Don’t touch me, please, no. _ He glances up, and the world is wavery and indistinct. Someone has their hands on his arm, his neck...someone with short black hair and a black shirt.  _ No, no, he can’t have found me! _ He pushes desperately, and he thinks maybe he’s screaming for someone to help but he can’t hear his own voice.  _ Don’t let him take me away. Please, please, stop him. _

“It’s alright, calm down, you’re safe. We’re going to get you help.” The voice isn’t Murdoc’s and the hands don’t feel cold and wrong like his. But when Mac blinks, it’s him, he’s right there, leering down at Mac. 

“You thought you could escape from me? Oh Angus, you’re only making it worse. You know, you bring this on yourself.” There are more hands, on his chest, on his legs. The ones on his chest are making the cuts burn and sting.

“Please, stop. Please.” He can hear someone talking, but he doesn’t know what they’re saying, everything is blurry and hazy. Someone in an orange t-shirt leans down, and Mac flinches away, gasping. Everything is blurry but El Noche’s face is horribly clear. He’s breathing nitrogen, he can’t think, can’t move, can’t  _ breathe... _

“Leave me alone!” He knows he’s crying, he knows he’s pathetic, but he doesn’t care anymore, he just wants them to stop. “Let me go!” 

He knows it’s not cold but he’s shivering, so badly. The asphalt and concrete are rough and warm on his skin, but he hates that he can feel them. His shoulder and back feel too hot, and it feels like they’re on fire; he doesn’t really know what happened to them...oh wait, the car hit him and he fell and skidded, that’s what happened. Things are coming back now. 

He thinks he got away, but Murdoc might have heard the accident, he might be able to figure out that that’s where Mac is. What if he shows up and convinces them that he’s here to pick Mac up?  _ I need Jack.  _ “I need to call my dad,” Mac says softly.  _ They’ll let Jack help me if I say he’s a parent. _

He takes the phone one of the bystanders hands him and dials Jack’s number; he knows it by heart. It takes forever for Jack to pick up.

_ I broke his phone. What if he doesn’t have a new one yet?  _ And then Jack’s voice comes through and Mac wants to cry with relief.  _ Jack is coming, it’s going to be okay.  _

* * *

Jack can see the accident site well before he gets there. The cluster of people is both awful and reassuring.  _ Mac is going to be scared out of his mind surrounded by so many strangers, but at least if they’re all still around, it means Murdoc didn’t show up and grab him yet.  _ Jack parks as close as he can and starts pushing his way through the crowd.

“You’re going to have to stop right there, sir, there’s an injured man here,” a short, redhaired woman insists, pushing him backward with surprising force. 

“Let me through,” Jack insists. “He called me, I’m here to come pick him up, it’s okay, I promise.” 

“I’m going to have to ask how you know him,” the woman says, making a clear barrier between Mac and Jack. He can see that she’s a social worker, she still has her office nametag,  **Linda H** _. _

“I’m his father.” He says it without even a second’s hesitation, because he  _ knows _ that’s what Mac will have told them. Somehow, he just knows it. “I know, I know this looks really bad, but he’s been in some trouble lately and I promise I’m going to make sure he’s okay.” 

“It sounds to me like he’s been living with someone abusive.” Linda frowns. “And I have no way to prove you’re his father. He has no identification on him, and you could know anything about him if you’ve lived with him.”

“Just let me talk to him. You’ll be able to see if he’s scared of me. And his name is Mac.”

The woman nods, then turns around and bends down next to Mac. Jack can’t hear what she’s saying, but the next second, Mac sits up sharply, looking straight at Jack. 

Jack shudders, there’s blood all over one side of the kid’s face. And the more he stares at it, the more it looks like the shape of a handprint.  _ Oh God what happened to him? _

“Jack!” Mac struggles, trying to get to his feet. “It’s okay, please let him through. Please.” The desperate need in his voice must convince Linda that Jack was telling the truth. She moves back, but he can tell she’s going to be watching Jack’s every move, making sure he’s not manipulating Mac into going with him. 

“I’m here, kiddo, it’s okay.” Jack sinks to his knees beside Mac, hands hovering inches from him.  _ What if all touching him does is scare him more? _

“Murdoc…” Mac mumbles. 

“I know, Mac, I know, it’s okay, he’s gone. I’m right here, I’m not gonna let him hurt you anymore, okay?”

Mac looks...less damaged than Jack was anticipating actually. There are several sluggishly bleeding gashes on his chest and arms, but they’re not deep, barely scratching the skin. Jack’s had worse from barn cats on the ranch. It appears the bloody handprint on his face isn’t covering any wounds, Murdoc must have taken the blood from the gashes he left elsewhere. Mac’s left arm and the back of his shoulder look red and raw, but it looks like that’s probably from when he hit the pavement after the car hit him. Jack guesses his leg will have some nasty bruises, but that’s not visible right now. And he’s deeply grateful for it.  _ Murdoc had him for over three hours, and those are the only marks he left on him?  _ Something feels off about this. 

_ Please don’t let there be damage I can’t see. _ Jack really hopes the reason Mac is mostly unscathed is just that he managed to escape Murdoc fairly quickly. Mac isn’t reacting to him the way he did after Bishop, so Jack is fairly certain that especially with Mac drugged and panicky, he would know if Murdoc had done anything worse, but he needs to be sure, he needs to  _ know. _ “Mac, he didn’t…”

Mac shakes his head, shivering, and Jack doesn’t press any more.  _ He would tell me _ . 

“Come on, kiddo, let’s get you home.” Jack leans down. “Can you stand up?”

Mac tries, then falls back. “Here, let me help.” He puts his arm around Mac’s shoulder and pulls the kid to his feet. “Oh damn, kid.” Mac’s left knee is all scraped up too, it was hidden by his other leg until now, but he must have skidded and rolled.  _ How hard did that damn car hit him? _ Jack feels like crying at the sight of his battered, bloodied kid.

The ambulance squeals up, and Jack nods to the paramedics but doesn’t leave Mac’s side. He knows the Phoenix team won’t question him. And now he has to get the crowd out of here. 

“Thank you for making sure he was okay.” Jack knows they meant well. And this Linda was trying to make sure he didn’t end up back in the hands of an abuser. “It’s going to be fine, now. They need some space.” People begin nodding and start moving away, until it’s just Mac and Jack and the medics and some passersby. 

Jack paces, watching the medics check Mac’s vitals, clean up the wounds on his chest and arms, and start asking questions to evaluate how lucid he is. Mac is answering, slowly but at least somewhat confidently. He’s rubbing his arms and shivering, even though it’s late summer and the sun is out.  _ Okay, I may not be able to do much about the medical concerns, but this I can help with. _

Jack digs around in the backseat until he finds the old hoodie he shoved in there weeks ago. It’s worn and soft and it’s at least  _ something _ . He’s sure all these people hovering, while Mac was laying there half-naked in the road, was absolutely terrifying. Mac is still shaking, arms crossed protectively over his chest, shielding as much of his body from view as he possibly can.

Jack jumps when one of the paramedics puts a hand on his shoulder. “We’re about ready to take him back to Phoenix, but he’s refusing to get in the ambulance.” Jack can imagine why. Small enclosed spaces have not been good to Mac recently. 

“Is he stable?”

“For the most part. We’re monitoring for adverse reactions to the drug, but it seems to be leaving his system without serious side effects.”

“Will it be a problem if  _ I _ drive him there?” Jack doesn’t want to let the kid out of his sight either, and he knows Mac will feel safest in the GTO. The paramedic frowns but finally nods. 

“It’s not ideal, but he does seem calmest around you.” Jack gives her a small smile and walks over to collect Mac from the back of the ambulance. 

“Hey, you ready to get outta here?” Mac nods. “Here, kiddo.” Jack hands him the sweatshirt. “Now that they got you all patched up, thought you might want this.” Mac snatches it from him almost desperately, pulling it over his head, or at least trying to. 

Mac struggles weakly, tugging persistently at the cloth and trying to shove his head through the arm hole. “Here, is it okay if I help?” Jack reaches his hands out, and Mac nods. He tries not to touch Mac’s skin while he works the sweatshirt over the kid’s skinny chest and arms. 

* * *

When he hears Jack’s voice at the edges of the crowd, Mac feels the fear finally fading away. Jack is here now, he’s finally going to be safe. He can hear Jack arguing with someone, and then he’s there, right there, telling Mac what he already knows, that it’s going to be okay.

He can tell Jack’s trying to be careful, trying not to touch him. But he knows Jack’s hands will never hurt him. He wants to tell him that but he can’t get words out properly right now. Finally Jack seems to understand, he puts his arm around Mac’s shoulder.

And then there are sirens and the medics are there, and Mac tries to keep reminding himself they won’t hurt him, they need to touch him to help. But every time they do, he flinches. He at least recognizes these people, they’re Phoenix staff.  _ If it was just a random EMT crew I don’t know if I could take it. _

Jack steps away, and Mac knows he needs to because the medics need to get him cleaned  up and checked over, but he wants Jack to hold onto him or at least be there and make sure no one hurts him.  _ ‘It’s sad, how you latch onto Dalton for protection.’ _ Murdoc’s voice echoes in his thoughts, and Mac shudders and bites his lip, so hard blood tastes copper on his tongue and draws out an even older memory, one he’s almost forgotten, of standing in the kitchen in Mission City with an ice cube held to his lip and James explaining to him how to throw a proper punch.  _ ‘Listen, Angus, I’m not going to go to the school and fix this for you this time. I’m tired of having to go down there and ask them to keep an eye on you. You need to learn how to fight your own battles.’ _ He remembers the day after, when Donnie and his cronies came back, and he tried, he really did, but hitting back only made it worse.  _ Is it really so wrong? To want someone to watch over me? _

He doesn’t want to get in the back of the ambulance, not without Jack.  _ Murdoc is still out there somewhere. Anything could happen. _ He’s glad when he hears Jack offer to give him a ride back, and the medics agree. He wanted that, but he didn’t want to ask and sound like a scared, pathetic child. He just needs to feel safe right now, and there’s a part of him that sounds very much like Murdoc that mocks that need, but there’s another voice in his head, Jack’s voice, that tells him it’s okay. 

“Here, kiddo,” Jack says, and he’s pressing something soft into Mac’s hands. It’s a hoodie, and Mac gives Jack a tiny grateful smile. The shirt is warm and soft and smells like Jack. Mac curls into it, it feels safe. No one can see him now, no one can touch him. Jack is here and it’s going to be okay. 

The car feels safe too. It’s warm and smells like gun oil and the carpet cleaner Jack always uses and Riley’s hairspray because she always leans back on the headrest when she rides shotgun. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Jack asks. “Mac, don’t scare me like that again.” He knows Jack is only scolding because he was terrified. 

“I wasn’t trying,” Mac says, he feels a little more like joking now, like trying to put how scared he was in the past for good.  _ I don’t want to think about it and I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to be okay and move on _ . The last of the drug is wearing off and he’s finally able to get a grip on his emotions and push them down. 

He doesn’t want to be too much to deal with and push Jack away, not after everything.  _ It wasn’t so hard before he told me he was basically my dad now. _ It was okay to be not okay then, because that was field agent Overwatch Jack, and Mac knows how that works.  _ I have to tell him when something isn’t right, or it can be dangerous on a mission. _ But the more Jack’s taken over that fatherly role, the more it feels strange to go to him with problems. Mac knows that makes no sense, but in his experience, admitting weakness to his dad only made everything worse.  _ I know Jack is so far from being James that that’s never going to happen, but it’s so hard to remember.  _

“I know you didn’t do it on purpose.” Jack looks over at him for so long Mac’s afraid they’re going to get into a crash. “But when I got there and the door was open and you weren’t there, you scared the hell out of me. I’m not letting you go home till Matty calls whoever installed her security system and makes them do your house too.”

“I mean, normally I have Mickey around…” 

“I know, but I’d rather be overprotective than regret not taking precautions.” Mac nods. He doesn’t think he’ll feel safe in his own house again for a while.  _ But staying with Jack puts him at risk too.   _

Apparently the drugs haven’t totally worn off yet, and he must say at least some of that out loud, because Jack shakes his head and looks at Mac again, even longer. “Kiddo, I will take any risk I need to to keep you safe. That’s what family is for.” 

“But…”

“Mac, at some point I’m gonna manage to get through your head that you are never, ever gonna be a burden to me.” Jack sighs. “No one in their right mind is gonna let you stay anywhere alone tonight anyway. And I don’t like to brag, but I  _ do _ have the best track record in Phoenix when it comes to protecting assets or fellow agents.” He grins slightly. “And when it comes to Murdoc, I think you need the best we have to offer.” 

“I just...I shouldn’t put you in danger just for me…”

“I’m gonna stop you right there, because that is your messed up excuse for a dad talking, not you, kiddo.” Jack shakes his head. “Teams protect each other. I was a field agent for four years before I felt really comfortable doing solo ops, and even now, man, do you know how many times I woulda died if I didn’t have Cage or Riley or you watching my back?” He chuckles. “I think you’ve saved my life more times than I’ve had to save yours, if we’re being honest. That runaway train in Frankfurt, the Ghost, Murdoc when he first showed his creepy-ass self, hell, the first time I ever  _ met  _ you you stopped a bomb from going off and infecting San Francisco with the freaking plague.”

“Technically,  _ that _ was a virus and the plague was a bacterium…”

“Fine, out-science me.” Jack chuckles. “But my point still stands. The least I can do is have your back against one creepy homicidal maniac.” They’ve gotten to Phoenix, Jack is just pulling into his usual parking space. He shuts off the car and rests his hand on Mac’s shoulder. “I know all your life, everyone taught you you had to handle things on your own. But you got a family now, and that means that’s not how it works anymore.” Mac nods. 

* * *

PHOENIX FOUNDATION INFIRMARY

MAC SPENDS TOO MUCH TIME HERE

Riley can’t make herself leave the room. She needs to be able to see, with her own eyes, that Mac is right here, back safely. The whole day has felt like a nightmare, but she really hopes this isn’t the part that’s a dream. 

She rests her fingers over Mac’s hand, his own is cold and shaky, but at least solid and real. He’s still sitting right where he was when she and Matty and Sam and Bozer came in, on the edge of an exam bed with his legs swung over the side, alternately looking at them and the floor. 

He’s refused to let any of the medical personnel take the old, worn-out sweatshirt of Jack’s that he’s got; he’s wearing it over the scrubs they replaced his ruined, filthy clothes with. She knows the feeling. When Jack got her back from that interrogation room in Nepal and gave her his shirt because it was cold and her own was soaked from the repeated waterboardings, she slept in it for a week. 

Sometimes it’s easy for her to forget how traumatic her own first years in the field were. Argentina, Nepal, Cairo, Budapest, Pakistan, Sri Lanka… she’s learned to compartmentalize and keep the nightmares at bay, for the most part, but it wasn’t always like this.  _ I’m not sure if this is better or worse _ . Sometimes she watches Mac and Bozer’s reactions to trauma and wonders if she’s losing her humanity. But watching other people get hurt in the field is still the worst thing she can imagine, and taking a life still keeps her up at night. So she thinks it might still be okay. It’s been the subject of more than one late-night conversations with Sam over a beer, because if anyone knows what it means to lose their humanity to the job, it’s Cage. 

Jill steps in, shoving her glasses up her nose and fidgeting with the clipboard in her hands. “The lab is running tox screens on your blood right now. We should know what Murdoc drugged you with in the next half hour.”

“If I had my guess, I'd say something in the nightshade family. Atropine, hyoscyamine, scopolamine.” There’s a clinical detachment in the way he says it, like he’s talking about something that happened to someone else. 

“And that means?” Jack asks, and Riley can hear the barely suppressed fear.

“It was probably a low dose, it shouldn’t do permanent damage. Murdoc said he was trying not to make it too strong.”

Jack slams a fist into his hand. “Yeah, well, his idea of too much and my idea of too much are not the same, and when we find him I’m gonna make sure he knows that. I think a few broken bones should get the message across real well.”

“Yes, but we have absolutely no leads on  _ how _ to find him,” Matty cuts in. “As much as I would love for you to be able to do that, we don’t even know where he was keeping Mac, let alone where he is now.” 

“I-I might be able to help with that,” Mac says softly. “If I could remember how I got out…”

“Whoa, whoa, hoss, if the only way to find Lord Nutbar is to make you relive everything he did to you, I don’t want him that bad.” 

“But we have to find him or he could do this again.” Mac’s starting to shiver slightly. Riley squeezes his hand. 

“I’m with Jack,” Bozer says. “Dude, I know you want some closure, but don’t you think you’ve been through enough for one day? I mean, you got kidnapped by the world’s creepiest psychopath, tortured in some freaky underground room, and then got away only to climb out a manhole and almost get killed by a car.” 

“Cars. There was definitely more than one.” 

“That  _ hit you _ ?” Jack looks murderous. 

“No, no, in the street.” 

Riley glances from Mac to Cage, Sam’s got that ‘I have an idea’ face that in Riley’s experience means either doing drunken inkblot tests at three a.m., or Sam walking into an interrogation room and coming out with exactly what they need. “Guys, I need a minute alone, just with Mac and Riley.” 

“Whoa, whoa, hey, what gives?” Jack asks. 

“Loftus and Palmer, 1974. Their experiments proved how even the most seemingly benign questions can alter a witness’s memories, even create false ones.” She glances at Mac. “If you really want to try and find a clue to where you were, we have to do it now, before there’s the possibility of your memories becoming even more tainted.” She looks at him. “I’m not going to lie, you could have a very vivid recall, and it might be traumatic. It’s your choice to do this or not.”

“If I’m scared of the memories of him, it means he already won. I want to get him.” Mac whispers.

“Okay, then I need everyone but Riley to leave, and Riley, you need to be absolutely quiet.” Jack resists, pushing back against Cage’s hands. “Jack, I promise, he’s going to be okay. I’ll take good care of him.”

“I know. But Mac, I’m gonna be right outside the door the whole time. I’m not taking my eyes off you, you hear?” Mac nods.

Riley sits down at the table with her rig, ready to take notes on whatever Mac describes.  _ Anything could be the clue we need. _ “We’re gonna play a little game, it’s one Rudyard Kipling wrote about. He called it the Jewel Game, now everyone just calls it “KIM”. Keep In Memory.” Riley knows that one, she learned it in CIA training. “Here’s how it works. Whenever you’re ready, put yourself back in the room where Murdoc took you. But the rules of the game are that you can’t name what you see, you just describe it.” Mac nods slowly. “And if it’s too much, we can stop whenever you want.”

“Alright.” Mac takes a deep breath, breathing out slowly, and closes his eyes. “I-I’m sitting in a chair, it’s just…”

“Okay, but try even simpler. Just the visceral. You can describe colors, shapes, textures, sounds, smells.” Mac nods, eyes still squeezed shut. 

“It’s damp, and cold. It smells like mold...and, um, burnt motor oil. And bleach. I’m sitting on metal. It’s cold, it’s rough in spots, it’s jagged. It’s old. All around me are flat, rough, grey rectangles.” Riley types frantically, trying to capture every bit of the memory. So far, all she’s got is a cinderblock room that may or may not be underneath a garage of some kind. “There are hard, smooth metal bands cutting into my wrists. I’m trapped, I don’t like them, they hurt and I remember…” he cuts himself off with a shake of his head, and Riley’s pretty sure he’s talking about handcuffs and remembering a time further back in his past, not uncommon when sensations overlap. She’s done that herself in this memory game. “There’s a pain in my right arm, just below the elbow. And it’s spreading, it’s all over my chest now. There’s something wet and red and sticky, all over me, and there’s something sharp-” He cuts off with a startled gasp, jerking forward and panting. 

Sam puts her hands on Mac’s shoulders, holding him steady and trying to catch his eyes. “It’s okay, it’s okay. It’s just that vivid recall I warned you about. Are you okay?” She cups a hand around the back of his neck, clearly trying to calm him down. There’s no question what he was just describing; Riley heard the medical team report in, and she can see the edges of bandages under the collar of the scrubs and sweatshirt. 

Mac clutches the overly long sleeves of Jack’s sweatshirt in his hands. It looks like he’s trying not to go into a full-blown panic. “He’s in my head, I can’t do this.” Cage looks up. 

“Riley, tell Jack to come in.” Riley nods and gets up. Jack is literally pressed against the door already, and the second Riley opens it he’s reaching for her shoulder. 

“What the hell was that?” 

“He had a really vivid recall. She’s doing KIM with him.” Jack sighs, nodding. “But she wants you there.”

Jack doesn’t question it. He walks in and sits down next to Mac. Cage glances at him. “No matter what happens I need you to be quiet. But you can hold his hand, ground him a little. I know some people go deeper into their memories than others, and it looks like he’s having a little trouble staying on the surface. He’s having some really strong reactions.” 

Jack twists his fingers into Mac’s, and Mac takes another deep breath. “Do you want to go back?” Sam asks. He nods slowly, closing his eyes.    
“There’s a sound of, uh, metal. It’s jingling.” Mac rubs at his wrists, where Riley can see faint red marks. “There’s a strip of wood around a grey metal rectangle. I can feel cold air seeping through from the other side...it’s a way out.” He blinks and shudders. “I’m in a large open space, I can hear footsteps. There’s a small, dark space, and there’s a black square opening underneath me. There’s water, it’s all around me, it’s cold. I can smell dirt and gasoline and garbage. I can hear splashing, the water...I’m walking and it...it’s moving with me.” Riley finally has something actionable; she pulls up a chart of direction of flow in the runoff tunnels.

“And after about...twenty minutes? I heard something. It was like...um...bells. Ch-church bells. But it wasn’t just church bells. There was another sound, right after the church bells started. It was harsher. Like an air raid siren or...or...a fire station.” His eyes suddenly fly open. “It means I know how to figure out where I was.” 

“You do?” Jack asks, forgetting to be quiet. But Cage doesn’t scold. 

“Yeah. Church bells, they ring every half hour. And it was about fifteen minutes before I crawled out of the manhole so…”

“1:30 p.m.” Riley makes a note of it. 

“And by law the LAFD if required to keep a record of every siren, so Riley…”

She was on that two minutes ago. “An alarm sounded at Grand Street Fire Station at 1:29.”

“1:29 and how many seconds?” Jack gives him an odd look. “It’s, uh, kind of important.” 

“Fifty-eight.” 

“Okay, fifty-eight. So that siren sounded before the church bells, but I heard it after. And that's because sound travels at 340 meters per second, approximately, and it propagates out into a circle, so I have to solve for the radius…” He’s going into what Riley and Jack have begin to simply call “Mac mode”, rushing around grabbing a marker and starting to scribble on the glass wall that separates the infirmary from the waiting room.  _ I hope that was a dry-erase marker. _

He’s mumbling, and Riley thinks she might remember some of this from high school geometry, but it’s been a while.  _ It’s absolutely unfair that he’s so good at  _ everything.  _ There was a time when I would have killed to be able to do what he does. Some days I still envy it.  _ But she’s started to think that maybe being so smart has a price.  _ He never wants to admit defeat, never wants to think that there’s something he can’t fix. He always has to prove himself, always needs to be the smartest person in the room. _ And as messed up as her childhood was, she wouldn’t trade it for Mac’s. 

_ As smart as he was, he could never be good enough for his father. _ She wonders how much of Mac’s unbelievably vast knowledge and skill is actually an inherent part of him and how much was him trying desperately to find something that would finally, finally impress James.  _ At this point, would it even be possible to know? _ Clearly James is the sort who values logic and intelligence above all else, and Mac tried to make himself into the person James wanted to see.  _ What would he have been if he had a father like Jack? _

_ All these skills were a high price to pay to try to earn a father’s love. _ And Mac still seems to believe those are the only things that make him valuable. 

He turns around with a triumphant little smile, and Riley feels a little better.  _ At least doing this does make him happy. _ “I figured it out. So, we are looking for a sewer tunnel that is 1,020 meters from a church and 1,700 meters from  _ that _ fire station.”

“I got two that fit your criteria...but only one where the water is flowing  _ toward _ your exit point.” Mac comes over to look at the screen, cocking his head like a confused puppy.

“So, I was drugged, disoriented; probably moving no more than 1.5 miles per hour...which would put Murdoc’s, uh, torture room,” He shivers, then taps his finger on the map, “right about...here.” 

* * *

Mac knows going with the team to search the building he’s located probably isn’t the smartest move. But he has to go back. He can’t really explain it even to himself. Jack tried to argue him down, but finally gave in and let him get his go bag and change.

“At least let us clear it first,” Jack insists, and Mac will agree to that. He stays in the van with Matty and Bozer while the tac team clears the building. 

“I’m clear in my area,” Jack says, finally. “Riley? Cage?”

“Still working on it,” Riley says. “But I’m not picking up any heat signatures.” 

“Me either.” Cage’s voice echoes, she’s in some kind of open space, probably the second floor level. This building has been abandoned for a long time, and the built in parking garage in the lower floor probably accounts for the motor oil smell Mac remembered. Jack’s clearing that level personally.

“Okay, Mac, Bozer, I’m clearing you two to go in.” Matty says. “Don’t do anything stupid.” Mac nods and climbs out. He heads straight for where Jack is in the parking garage.

“I think we found your room, Mac.” Jack’s standing at a door with a broken-out lock. “It looks like just what you described down there.” Mac shudders, he doesn’t need to see it. 

“This is definitely it,” he mumbles, glancing around. This is the wide open space he remembers from his escape, and he can see the closet with the hole that led down to the sewer tunnel. There’s a clatter of footsteps on the stairs, and he flinches before reminding himself it’s more of the tac team, not Murdoc. It’s Riley’s unit, and from the look on her face as she walks over, something is wrong.  

“Jack,” Riley whispers, and it’s clear she doesn’t want Mac to hear her. “You need to see what else they found.” She looks horrified, like she might be sick at any second. 

Jack nods, stress lining his face, and turns toward where Riley just came from. Mac starts to follow him, but Riley puts a hand on his arm, gently. “Mac, you don’t want to see it. Trust me, please, don’t go in there.” 

Mac shakes his head. “I have to.” Because if he doesn’t see for himself, the possibilities will haunt his imagination. Riley shakes her head but says nothing else, and there’s a look in her eyes he can’t quite understand. 

The room he follows Jack into is dark, lit only by the low gleam of a reddish-shaded small lamp resting on a table. But the evidence photographers are hard at work, and in the bright flashes from the cameras, Mac can see a mattress in a corner, and the table set nearby. The top of the table isn’t even visible under the various items Murdoc has clearly carefully arranged on top of it. 

It’s a sickening assortment of things Mac’s only ever seen in the windows of a shop that used to be in the Bozers’ neighborhood. Mama Bozer always hurried them past there when they walked to the corner dollar store and told them if she ever caught them staring they’d be washing their eyes out with soap. 

At the time, Mac hadn’t understood why. Now, he wishes he still didn’t know. Because seeing these same things laid out on a table in Murdoc’s carefully prepared room is too much. He barely makes it out of the room before he falls to his knees in a corner, throwing up what little is in his stomach. 

He’s not aware of anything but the bitter taste in his mouth and the afterimages of that awful room burned into his eyes, until he hears footsteps behind him and feels a large, warm hand rubbing comforting circles on his back. “Hey, kiddo, it’s okay.” Jack kneels beside him.

Mac just shakes his head. Nothing is okay, not as long as Murdoc is still out there somewhere. “I’m sorry…”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Jack says, and it sounds like he’s actively working to avoid throwing up as well. “That sick freak…” 

Mac bites his lip. “H-he must have left in a hurry. Leaving everything behind like that.” He doesn’t want to think about it anymore.  _ If I hadn’t gotten out of there when I did… _ He can’t stop shivering. 

“And that’s not the only thing he left behind,” Riley says quietly. “It looks like he left a message for you, Mac.” He gets up mechanically and follows her. Nothing can be worse than what he just saw... _ right? _

He still flinches when he sees it. **BE SEEING YOU** is scrawled in red paint on the wall. And below it is a manila envelope with  _ MacGyver _ written on the front in the same sprawling crimson handwriting. He doesn’t want to touch it. But he has to know.

He borrows Riley’s spare pair of gloves and picks it up carefully, carrying it to a table. He knows better than to just open an envelope found at a crime scene, there could be any number of booby traps. But it doesn’t seem to have wires or odd powder on it, and he slits the top with his knife, emptying the contents onto the table. 

It’s a set of photographs, all clearly hand-developed, and a flashdrive. Riley takes the drive and plugs it into the secure port on her rig, and Mac starts spreading out the photos. He stops, shaking, hands unable to move. 

_ He didn’t just break into my house. He’s been watching me. For weeks. _ He begins to shiver uncontrollably. There are pictures of him leaving the house with Mickey for a run, pictures of the whole team on the deck after a mission. It has to be after Azerbaijan, he can see the bruises on himself and Jack and Cage. It’s utterly terrifying.

“Hey, bud, let me. You don’t need to…” Jack gently pushes him away. He shuffles a few more of the pictures around and then turns away, coughing into his sleeve in a way that sounds like he’s about to be sick.  _ What could possibly... _ And then Mac sees the photos Jack’s just uncovered. They’re clear views into his bedroom, and in the only one he can fully see, he has his back to the window, changing his shirt. That was a week ago, when Mickey bumped into him and made him spill coffee all over. He can tell that’s where Jack stopped; Mac doesn’t want to see any more either. He can imagine it only gets worse. 

He can’t stop shaking. This time there’s definitely nothing in his stomach, but he’s still throwing up. And he can’t breathe.  _ He was right there. He wanted me to know. And he wanted me to know that he has those pictures. These can’t be the only copies.  _ He’s vaguely aware that Jack is holding onto him, rubbing his back, whispering, but it’s drowned out by the roaring in Mac’s ears. 

_ This is worse. This is so much worse. _

* * *

The tac team has already cleared every inch of the building. There’s no sign of Murdoc and the crime scene techs are moving in to collect evidence. Sam has been listening to everything on comms, and she knows exactly what’s happening downstairs.  _ Murdoc really decided to up his game. _ The over-the-top, elaborate setup he’s left for Mac to find suggests that he fully intended to have them figure out his location. Which is another reason she’s confident the building is clear.  _ But it begs the question, why? _

She’s not convinced that this was all just a game to humiliate and terrify Mac.  _ I’m sure that was the cherry on top, but Murdoc could have done that so much more effectively in so many other ways.  _ She’s honestly shocked that the only damage Murdoc did was the cuts he left on Mac’s arms and chest.  _ After what I heard him say in those interrogations, I was expecting we would either get Mac back in a body bag, or raped.  _ But that’s not what happened. And she doesn’t like not being able to understand.

_ If he just wanted to play twisted mind games, he could have left those pictures anywhere he wanted. He could have had them delivered to the Phoenix. Or slid them under Mac’s door. Or spread them out on his kitchen table; clearly he could get into the house. _ She can’t get over that sick little room Riley found...maybe he wanted Mac to experience that in person, but why not take him there, then, instead of that basement? 

_ What do you know? _ She walks herself back through the clues, pacing the perimeter of the empty room.  _ Murdoc has been watching Mac for some time. He could have acted on that at any point. He chose now. Why? He clearly took his time preparing this place. Maybe he waited until it was ready. Murdoc wanted us to find this place. Either he trusted Mac to be able to get back in, left us a clue we overlooked, or would have eventually started sending hints. _ None of this is painting a helpful picture.  _ He’s done everything he can to frighten Mac, but he left few actual injuries.  _ Even she never set up something this elaborate, and it’s very unlike Murdoc.  _ He doesn’t usually have the patience for something like this. He likes to work quickly. _ None of this fits his usual pattern.

Her phone rings, which is odd. Everyone who might need to get hold of her is on comms already. She pulls it out and hits the button to cast the voice onto the comm audio frequency before answering. 

“Hello, Samantha.” Murdoc’s voice is an eerie gloat. “So nice to see you’re finally putting your talents to use again. You were so  _ wasted _ in an office.”

“Not that it’s any of your business,” Sam says coldly. 

“Oh but it is! A fellow artist, their gifts unappreciated, it’s a tragedy.” His smile is audible in his voice. “Don’t lie, you  _ missed _ this. The thrill of the hunt, outsmarting the enemy, this is what you live for. It’s in your  _ blood. _ ” 

“So you’re saying I’ve managed to outsmart you?” She can’t resist the jibe. 

“Oh, on the contrary. I’m the one holding all the aces, Samantha. But it’s no fun to win the game by a slaughter.” 

And then there’s a searing pain in her shoulder and she’s flung to the ground by the force of a bullet impacting her vest. The phone flies out of her hand to lay beside her, Murdoc’s voice continuing. “I’m a sportsman, Samantha, I like to give my prey a fighting chance. And a headshot from a distance, well, that just doesn’t do  _ justice _ to the legend you are. No, when I finally kill you, you’re going to see my face.” And then the call hangs up and she lays there on the floor panting, unwilling to admit to the fear flooding through her veins.  _ He could have killed me. And he didn’t, just because he likes to play his twisted little games. _ But now she knows something else.  _ He’s jealous. He knows what my record looks like, and he wants to prove he’s better.  _ He’s going to meet her face to face, give her the chance to defend herself, risk being beaten at his own game, because he has a chip on his shoulder. 

“Cage!” Riley shouts. She can hear her running toward the middle of the room. 

“No, stay back! He had a clear line of sight, don’t come out here!” She has no idea if Murdoc’s sportsmanship extends to any of the rest of the team. 

“Check every rooftop south of this building for five blocks!” Riley barks out. “Where’d he hit you?” 

“Vest. Shoulder.” She knows Riley already heard the exchange on comms, she knows that Murdoc now has Sam in his sights metaphorically as well. “I’m alright. Just aches a little.” She slowly pushes herself to her feet, retrieves her phone, and stumbles over to the doorway. “Well, one thing’s for sure, he hasn’t left town.” 

* * *

Jack is one hundred percent and undeniably rattled. This is the scariest damn mission he’s ever been on, and he thought nothing was ever going to top Cairo. But at least in Cairo, it was straightforward.  _ Bad guys want bomb, Jack and Riley are in the way, Jack ends up shot and Riley almost ends up dead _ .  

This is a whole new level of insanity. _Murdoc stalks Mac for weeks, kidnaps him, brings him to this place, cuts him up a little, and then basically allows him to escape, assuming he’s good enough to find his way back and enjoy the little parting gifts Murdoc left?_ _And then Murdoc calls Cage, has some freaky little heart to heart, and shoots her in the vest?_ Jack definitely does not like any of this. Not at all. _He’s proving a point. That he can take any of us, whenever he wants. He can kill, or kidnap, when it suits his whim._ Jack hates the idea that all of them are at that psychopath’s mercy. That somehow, taking another breath has been made to feel like a betrayal because it’s what Murdoc _wants._ He’s manipulating all of them, but most unforgivably, he’s manipulating Mac. 

The kid had a damn panic attack on them, right there, and Jack doesn’t blame him after finding those photos. A medic team is looking after him and Cage. Sam’s going to have a nasty bruise, but she’s caught the team spirit and is insisting she’s fine, that she can gear up and go back to work. Mac is still shivering. His breathing has calmed down, but he’s clutching Jack’s fingers in a death grip. He hasn’t let go since Jack pulled him away from that table and those sick pictures. 

Jack actively tries not to let hate filter into his job.  _ Once you do that, you stop seeing human beings and start seeing targets.  _ He did that, a long time ago, and he almost didn’t come back.  _ I can’t afford to go back to that place.  _ But right now, when he thinks of Murdoc, all he can feel is a burning rage.  _ He’s torturing Mac, even though he doesn’t have him physically in his hands any longer. _ Jack can’t imagine what the kid is going through.  _ To have someone watching you in your own home like that... _ He shivers.  _ I don’t think I’d ever feel safe in my own house again. _

Matty walks up, and her face is grim. “The tac team checked every rooftop for five blocks and found nothing. Not so much as a boot print or shell casing.”

“I didn’t expect them to,” Cage says, hopping down off the table she’s sitting on with a grimace. “He was very confident that he wasn’t going to be caught.” 

“Still, I’d like you…”

“If you say you want me to go into protective custody, Matty, the answer is no.” Cage shakes her head. “Everyone in this team has his target on their backs anyway. He just formally threw down the glove to me. He wants to play games, and next time, I’ll be ready.” Matty nods. 

“Bozer and Jill found something interesting. Jack, I think you might want to take a look.” 

Jack scrubs a hand over his face. “Matty, if it’s more…”

“This isn’t about Mac. We think it’s Murdoc’s next victim, but we have no way of proving it.” Jack hops off the table, and behind him he hears Mac do the same. He turns to see the kid following him like a freaking lost puppy.  _ Yeah, I don’t want to let you out of my sight either, kiddo. _

Bozer and Jill are spreading papers out on a table. Most of them are charred beyond recognition. “It looks like Murdoc tried to cover his tracks,” Bozer says. They haven’t told him about the photos yet.  _ He’s having a bad enough day already. No sense in having him beat himself up for that psycho being around the house before this. _ Sooner or later, he’ll have to find out, but hopefully it’s when Murdoc is either behind bars or six feet under. Jack doesn’t particularly care which. 

“This is the largest piece,” Jill says, holding up a section with just one charred corner. “It feels like photo paper, but we can’t make out a clear image.” The second she says photo paper, Jack’s heart clenches, but when she spreads it out on the table he can see the faint remaining marks of a headshot.  _ Thank God Murdoc didn’t leave another one of his stalker photos for them to find. _

Mac’s fear has given way to his scientific curiosity. “Does the forensics team have a portable x-ray machine?” 

“In the SUV,” Jill says, and follows it up with what has become the conditioned response to any of Mac’s requests for a piece of equipment. “Are you going to break it?”

Mac stares at the floor. “Um, yeah. I can fix it though.”

“Go get him the x-ray machine,” Jill calls to a tech who’s just leaving the building. 

Mac is starting to shiver again. “Hey kiddo, you okay?” Jack asks.

“Yeah. I just have to go back in the room where Murdoc tortured me...and turn off all the lights.”

* * *

Mac really, really hopes that if he keeps up a stream of science related chatter, it’il distract him from what he’s about to do.  _ It worked before, I just have to keep my mind on something other than the current awful situation. _

“This photo’s days of reflecting visible light are over. The fire scorched most of the emulsion. But if there are any silver bromide crystals left, they should glow if we hit them with enough x-rays. Which is why I’m opening this portable x-ray emitter and removing the voltage resistor.” He pops it out with the pliers on his knife. “If I replace it with a penny,” he reaches into his pocket; he always keeps some from before 1982 with him.  _ That was before they started making them with copper-plated zinc; most of what I need them for needs the higher copper content _ . Bozer complains about finding them in the laundry, but there’s a jar full on the shelf above the dryver and Bozer always tucks two pennies and three paperclips in every pair of Mac’s pants when he’s finished the wash. “I can use the copper to rebuild the connection, and get a higher output of x-rays.” 

“Is that safe?” Jack asks.

“Relatively. I would recommend stepping back and covering yourselves.” He glances up, taking a deep breath and bracing himself. “Bozer, the lights?” The room goes dark, and Mac fights down a surge of panic.  _ Just do this and get it done and it can be over.  _ He turns on the x-ray machine and snaps several photos with the digital camera he brought down. 

“Uh, Mac, not to rain on your sciency parade, here, but I don’t see anything,” Jack says. 

“No, you don’t. But the camera does. Bozer, lights, please?” Mac turns the camera so the others can see the image he captured. “It’s called x-ray fluorescence.”

“It’s called a damn miracle,” Matty whispers. She’s been uncharacteristically quiet since they found that second room. 

Mac hands the camera over to Riley. “Hey Riley, do you think you can clean this up, get us a good look at the face?”

“Actually, I think I can clean it up enough for “Friar” to start running it through databases.” She glances at the image. “I think there are enough visible features for the prediction algorithm to do reconstruction.” 

Mac can’t get out of that room fast enough, and it seems like the others can’t either. He sees Jack wince at the sight of a few small bloodstains on the floor. They sit in the van with Riley while she watches her software do its work. 

“I’ve got a hit!” Riley says excitedly. 

“Ok, where? Interpol, CIA, FBI’s most wanted?” Jack asks.

“Um...no...CDE.” Riley sounds incredibly confused. 

“Wait, California Department of Education?”

“Yeah, he’s a fifth grade teacher.” Riley shrugs. 

“Did you break Friar?” Jack asks.

“No...This is a perfect match to the picture Mac got us. But it just doesn’t make sense.” 

“None of any of this makes any sense,” Matty says. “But since Murdoc tried to destroy that photo, we have to assume that this man is his next target.” 

* * *

HENRY FLETCHER’S HOUSE

NOT MURDOC’S TYPICAL MARK

Jack can’t help but feel the slightest bit stupid when he and Mac show up at the address Riley got them. She’s still going through her coding, double-checking to be sure her algorithms are all correct, because apparently Friar is throwing false positives.  _ I know that program is supposed to be designed to eliminate those kind of glitches, but there are flaws in every system. _ Still, there’s no sense in taking chances. Fletcher does live in LA, and Murdoc is in town.

“Mr. Fletcher? Mr. Henry Fletcher?” 

The door is answered by a middle-aged man in a sweater vest. The epitome of schoolteacher.  _ Riley checked up on him, he has no black marks on his record whatsoever.  _ But Jack hasn’t been able to forget what Mac says Murdoc told him about getting rid of the cancers in the world, or the suburban family that had hired the assassin to take out a domestic abuser.  _ It’s possible a parent hired him to get rid of a teacher who assaulted their child, afraid the system would fail, or knowing there’s been a cover up. _ If that does turn out to be the case, Jack thinks this guy might be better off with Murdoc.  _ But my job right now is to keep him alive long enough to find out. _

“Yes?” Jack can tell the man is utterly and completely confused.

“You need to trust me, and come with us right now.” 

“What?”

Mac speaks up hesitantly.  _ I really didn’t want him to come but I also don’t want to let him out of my sight.  _ “We, uh, we have reason to believe an international assassin is on his way to kill you.”  _ Okay, Mac, when you say it like that we do sound crazy. _

“Listen, I know this sounds really crazy, but we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t think you were in danger?”

“How do I know you’re not the ones I should be worried about?” 

“Because if we were, you’d be dead.” Jack figures there’s no point in mincing words. “Just trust me, get inside. And stay away from the windows.” The man finally lets them in, and Jack clears the first floor, pulling Fletcher into the hallway by the laundry room, away from any windows. 

“This is insane,” the man continues to insist. 

Jack nods. “I know, but so is the guy on his way here to kill you. So we’re here to get you into protective custody before he can.” 

“But why would anyone be hired to kill me? Why would someone want me dead?” Fletcher sounds genuinely distraught and confused. 

“Look, those are both very good questions, to be answered at another time, when this maniac is safely behind three-inch bars.” Jack shakes his head. “Until then, we’re going to take you to a secure facility where you’ll be safe.” 

“I can’t just leave like this. I have papers to grade, parent-teacher conferences…”

“Not anymore.” Jack’s patience is wearing thin. “I don’t know if you understand what I’m saying here. Either you go away temporarily, with us, or you go away permanently, in a pine box.” 

“Actually, modern caskets…” Mac begins, and then stops.  _ Yeah, definitely not the time, kiddo.  _ But he’ll cut Mac some slack. The kid’s just trying not to think about how horrible everything is, so he’s thinking of everything else. 

“I have medication, for my heart,” Fletcher says. “Can I at least grab that before we leave? I might need it.” 

“Okay. Go grab what you need, nothing else, and stay away from the damn windows.” Jack nods.  _ What’s the use of saving the dude if he croaks in transit because we literally gave him a heart attack? _ He wants to go watch the guy’s back, but watching Mac’s back is more important,  and they do have a Phoenix perimeter team watching for Murdoc. 

“Alright, I’m standing by with transport,” Cage says. “Have you got Fletcher?”

“He’s getting his heart medication, and we’re on our way.” 

There’s a sudden commotion from the comms, and Jack winces at the shout that comes through. “Mac, Jack, get out of there  _ now _ !” Riley is yelling. 

“What the…” And then a spray of bullets peppers the wall and Jack flinches and ducks, feeling the burn of something cross his shoulder. Fletcher is standing in the stairwell, a small automatic in his hands, raking the room with gunfire.  _ What the hell is this? _

“Mac! He’s got a gun!” Mac ducks, hiding behind a small table for cover, and scrambles over to Jack as Fletcher runs for the door, still firing. Jack reaches for Mac’s shoulders and pulls him up against the wall. “You hit?”

“No…” Mac says shakily, then more confidently, “No, but...Jack...your shoulder...” 

“Nothing vital.” Jack thinks it was a graze. He glances down and sees blood trickling down his arm.  _ Okay, I’ll probably need stitches. _ Still, he can work with this. 

“I have shots fired! All agents move in!” Cage is shouting, he can hear car tires squealing. “Where’s Murdoc?”

“It’s not Murdoc! It’s the teacher!” Mac yells. 

Jack hears another screech of tires that isn’t coming through the comms.  _ This is a blind cul-de-sac, only one exit.  _ “Cage! Schoolteacher’s on the move, headed your way, coming in hot!” 

There’s a gunshot and a thud, then a muffled groan. Jack races out the door, running to where their car is parked, just in time to see Cage jump to her feet, slide over the hood, and jump in the driver’s seat. 

“Guys, you really need to work on your warning time!”

“We’ll worry about it later!” Jack yells back, jumping in the passenger seat as Mac climbs in the back.  _ This day just keeps getting weirder and weirder. _

* * *

Sam’s shoulder aches and she wants to sleep for a week.  _ As soon as we get Fletcher into protective custody, I’m crashing. _ She pulls the small silver convertible they’ve borrowed from the Phoenix fleet for this run to the side of the street near Fletcher’s house.

She drove around the neighborhood after she dropped off Mac and Jack, checking for any signs of threat. She hasn’t seen anything to set off the alarm bells.  _ And I’m more on edge than usual today anyway.  _ Getting shot tends to do that to a person. 

“Transport standing by.” Jack replies, telling her Fletcher is getting his heart medicine. She doesn’t feel too worried about that.  _ Murdoc doesn’t seem to be here yet.  _

And then Riley is screaming into her comms, and Jack is yelling, and there’s gunfire everywhere. 

“Shots fired!”  _ Where did he come from? How did he get past us? _ She slams the car into reverse, she needs to get as close to the house and get them in fast, she’ll drive up to the front door if she has to to give them cover. 

“Where is he?”

“It’s not Murdoc, it’s the teacher!” Mac sounds freaked out and confused, and Cage doesn’t blame him.  _ He’s been through hell and back today.  _ And then she sees the little black car. She throws the convertible into park and opens the door, going for a clear shot.  _ If I can take him out... _ And then the car accelerates and she only has time to get off one poorly aimed shot before the car is practically on top of her. She flings herself over the hood of the convertible, groaning as she takes the impact on her bruised shoulder.  _ Damn it, that hurts.  _

Mac and Jack run out of the house, and Jack’s left arm is covered in blood, but neither of them look seriously wounded. 

It’s not until they’re on the road that any of them even bother to ask Phoenix what’s going on. Sam doesn’t really have time to worry about the why of this one, she’s having enough trouble keeping Fletcher’s vehicle in sight. Whoever he really is, he’s had pursuit training. 

She barely manages to hang onto his trail when he whips out into a crowded street, weaving between cars scarily confidently. “What the hell did we just walk into?” Jack yells. “Schoolteachers don’t drive like that!”

“And they don’t shoot like that, either,” Mac says grimly. He’s trying to tie a strip of his shirt around Jack’s arm. 

Riley answers. “Those hits Friar kicked out weren’t false positives. Fletcher has multiple aliases, but because the last one went off the grid in 1992, it wasn’t as easy to tie them all together.” Riley’s voice is a little shaky. “Our boy Henry was quite a world traveler. With a different name in every port. And trouble seems to follow him. Whenever one of his aliases entered a country, someone in that country vanished. A journalist in Kiev, a prosecutor in Berlin, a banker in Shenzhen. I think we're looking at a fader.”

“A fader?” Bozer asks.

“You want someone to go out with a bang, you hire Murdoc. But if you want someone to just fade away, you hire Fletcher.” Cage responds. She leaves off the fact that her own job didn’t used to be so different.  _ Removing problems discreetly.  _

“Why would Murdoc be hunting someone like that?” Bozer asks.

“Taking out the competition?” Jack asks. “Maybe this guy was horning in on his territory.”

“Well, we’re not going to find out unless we get him in an interrogation room!” Matty says sharply. “So I suggest you three stop playing around and bring him in.” Sam rolls her eyes. 

“Hell yeah. Time to get hot for teacher.” Jack pulls out his gun.

“Uh, Jack, if I’m going to interrogate him, I kind of need him alive?” Sam says. 

“I think I have an idea,” Mac says. “But it kinda depends on whether we can get in front of him.” 

Cage gives him a slightly offended glance in the rearview. “I think I can arrange that.” The next second she’s whipping off the road into a parking lot, pushing the speedometer well above the road traffic, and then jumping them over a curb and back into the street, narrowly avoiding clipping the front of a silver minivan. Horns are blaring but they’re now definitely in front of Fletcher. “Oh yeah! Get it, girl!” Jack whoops, and Sam grins despite the situation. She loves it when this kind of thing works. 

And then Jack is yelling, there’s a jarring impact on her right arm, and Cage realizes Mac is climbing from the backseat over the console, and reaching up to do something to the top of the car.

“Mac, I think he’s reloading!” Jack shouts. 

“Yeah, I know, hurry up…” Mac’s scrabbling with something in the car roof. Sam can’t look, she has to keep her eyes on the road. And then the front visor is flipped down in her face and Mac is leaning over  _ her. _

“Uh, Mac, I’m kind of trying not to kill us all here?” 

“Sorry.” He moves enough that she can see the road. “Okay, I got it.” He slides back a little. “Let him catch up.” Sam would argue with anyone but Mac who asked her to let them purposefully get closer to a maniac with a loaded gun. 

She can see the black car coming up on their tail. And then there’s a loud sound of fabric ripping, and her hair is suddenly being blown into her face.  _ He just ripped the top off the car.  _ Behind her, she sees it slap across Fletcher’s windshield and then get pulled down into the left front tire. The car careens sideways and slams into a row of parallel parked vehicles. 

Sam skids the convertible to a stop in the center of the street and jumps out, holding her gun on the disoriented man stumbling out of the car. “Hands on the wall! Now!” Jack barks, pulling his own weapon. Fletcher obeys, and Jack cuffs him roughly. “That’s for my arm.”

Sam calls in. “Matty, we’ve got him. We’ll bring him in for interrogation; we’re gonna need secure transport.”

“Copy that. Exfil is on its way.” 

“Do you think Matty’ll be pissed about the car?” Mac asks, looking at the clearly ruined top. 

“Only if she sees it,” Jack says. 

“Or if she hears you talking about it because you’re still on comms,” Matty says. Sam starts laughing, hysterically, uncontrollably. 

“I can totally fix that with some duct tape…” Mac is apparently trying to make this better but he’s spectacularly failing. 

“For the record? What you did to that convertible? That’s way worse than anything you’ve ever done to my phone,” Jack says. Sam shakes her head.  _ This family is crazy. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. _

* * *

Riley’s just finished talking to exfil and confirming they’re on the way back when a video call starts ringing. “Matty. There’s a call coming in.”

“Put it through.” Matty’s voice is tense. 

When the image flashes up on the screen, Riley freezes.  _ Murdoc. _ “Matilda, Riley, and Bozer. How nice to see the whole gang today!”

“You know, we’d love a face to face with you, it would be so much better in person,” Matty says.

“Oh, I would  _ love  _ that, but you see, my schedule is rather full, so I’m afraid I’ll have to take a rain check.”

“Oh, and here I thought you were outsourcing these days,” Riley cuts in. “Having us do your dirty work.”

“On the contrary. I  _ live _ for the dirty work,” Murdoc chuckles. “I’m so glad you got the chance to meet Henry. That man is  _ full _ of surprises. Rather like our dear little Miss Cage.” He smiles eerily.  _ He doesn’t know she was honest with us about her past. _

“You can save the manipulation, Murdoc. Cage told us about everything.” Matty says. “You’re not dividing my house.” She tilts her head. “So what do you want with Fletcher? Did he steal your clients? Maybe they were looking to work with someone more...stable.”

“Hurtful, Matilda. Hurtful. And here I thought we were friends.” 

“It’s a little hard to be friends with someone who stalks, kidnaps, and tortures one of my agents, and shoots another.” 

“You have them both back, don’t you?” Murdoc shrugs. “We’ve had such a good game this time, Matilda. You played your little pawns so well. But I’m still the one with the checkmate.” And then the camera turns, and Riley gasps when she sees the secure transport vehicle in the screen. And then Murdoc chuckles, stepping into view holding a rocket launcher and pointing it at the vehicle. Riley doesn’t even have time to scream a warning before the front of the transport explodes.  _ Mac! Jack! Sam! _

* * *

SECURE TRANSPORT

IT’S BEEN A LONG DAY

“Hey bud, how’s that big brain o’ yours holding up?” Jack asks. 

“I’m okay.” He’s really not, he’s making paperclip sculptures of bells and masks and he can’t stop replaying the events of the day in his head.  _ Has it really only been since this morning? _ He’s been electrocuted, kidnapped, tortured, escaped, taunted, and found out he’s been stalked for weeks, and gotten shot at.  _ Even for my job, this is excessive.  _

He’s exhausted, which is how he started the day.  _ I just want to go to sleep. For a week. _

“I’m just really glad you’re back, bud.” Jack reaches across the vehicle and ruffles his hair gently, and Mac leans into the touch. 

And then the world is a chaos of fire and smoke and they’re flipping, sliding, metal screeching and tearing. Someone is screaming. Maybe it’s him. He can’t tell. There’s smoke everywhere, and he feels heat licking at his legs. His ankles are pinned under a piece of metal.  _ I can’t get out. I can’t get out! _

Beside him, Jack is scarily silent, his head bleeding, unmoving. “Jack,” Mac rasps out, trying to reach over to him. And then he hears the whistling.  _ No, no, no. _

Murdoc walks up casually, kicking some twisted, smoking metal aside and pulling open the ruined door of the compartment Fletcher is in. He drags out the half-conscious man, and Mac can hear him talking outside.  _ He wants us to hear this. _

“Oh Henry! Such a pleasure to finally meet you. I know that you said that you always work alone, but seeing as how I just saved you from life in prison, I'd say you owe me a big favor.

See, I'm starting my own business venture. A little collective, if you will. And  _ you _ are my first recruit.” Fletcher’s only answer is some incoherent groaning and mumbling. He’s probably concussed. 

Mac hears a car door slam, and then boots shuffle into his line of vision. Murdoc bends down, reaching into the car to cup Mac’s cheek gently, brushing away a line of blood Mac didn’t even feel coursing down his face. “Oh MacGyver, I wish I could stay. I do so love seeing you unable to move.” Mac shudders.  _ He can do anything he wants, I’m trapped. _ “I’ll be seeing you, Angus. Very soon.” He smiles. “Until then, enjoy the little mementos of our time together. I know I do.” 

Mac manages not to start panicking until Murdoc walks away. But then every rapid breath is a struggle, sucking in as much smoke as air, making everything worse.  _ I have to get out, I have to get out of here. _

“M-Mac? You alive?” Jack is coughing, rolling over. “Damn it, that was him, wasn’t it?”

Mac can only nod. He can’t speak, he can’t breathe, he can’t think.

“A rescue crew is on its way.” Jack taps at his ear, his comm must still be working. “Five minutes out. They’re gonna get us outta here, okay, so just hang in there.”

“He was right there, Jack. Right there.” Mac can’t stop shaking.  _ He’s playing with me. He can hurt me, and  he wants me to know that the only reason he hasn’t done whatever he wants is because he chose not to.  _ He hates that there’s a twisted feeling of gratitude.  _ He had every chance to do so much worse, and he didn’t. _

He forces himself to stop thinking like that.  _ You don’t owe a psychotic murderer anything.  _ But he didn’t even really escape on his own. Murdoc  _ let him go _ . 

He only realizes he’s hyperventilating again when Jack places a calming hand on his chest and pulls Mac’s own over to rest on Jack’s heart. “Hey, Mac, stay with me, okay? It’s gonna be okay, I’m right here.” Mac nods shakily. “Just breathe, kiddo, just breathe.” 

Mac does. And as the sirens scream up, he feels his heartbeat finally falling into rhythm with Jack’s. 

* * *

PHOENIX MEDICAL

AGAIN

Cage is sporting a decent concussion, Mac’s even more bruised and battered than before, and Jack has some minor burns and scrapes to add onto the arm graze; the doctors keep insisting all three of them should stay for some smoke inhalation as well. But Jack knows Mac isn’t going to go for that, and there’s no way in hell he’s staying in medical overnight and letting Mac out on his own.  _ That’s how this whole damn disaster started. _ They doctors know better than to argue when he discharges himself. 

The kid’s nodding off in one of the waiting room chairs, and he jumps when Jack steps out. 

“You look like you’re wiped out, bud.” 

He nods. “All I want to do is sleep for a week, but I-I really, really don’t know if I can even think about closing my eyes right now.” Mac shudders. 

“It’s okay, I’m not gonna let anything happen to you,” Jack says. Bozer’s driving down to see his sister again, apparently that’s becoming a post-Murdoc tradition. Technically, Mac could have gone with him this time, but Jack’s not willing to let the kid out of his sight. And it looks like Mac doesn’t want that either. “Just grab your go bag and we’ll head over.”

“I’m already wearing what I had in it,” Mac says, shrugging and gesturing to the jeans and flannel that are now grimy and sooty.

“Then you can borrow some of my stuff, you do it often enough already.” Jack chuckles. “Go on, get in the car.”

He takes four wrong turns on the way to the apartment, on purpose.  _ Murdoc is still out there somewhere.  _ And chances are he knows enough about them already to know exactly where Jack lives, but he’s not going to slack off just because. 

He locks his door and checks it again the second they get inside. “I’m gonna make us some supper, kiddo, cause I don’t know about you but I have not eaten since that pub in London and I am  _ starving. _ ” Mac nods. “If you wanna take a shower, go ahead, you know where the clothes are.” Mac is covered in soot and grime from the explosion, and the few gashes on his cheek and forehead bled so damn much too. Jack knows he’s no better off, but if Mac wants the shower he’s getting the first one; the water heater isn’t working so great lately and it only has about one good shower in it at a time.  _ Maybe I’ll ask him to take a look at it. _ He’ll save that for if the kid wakes up in the middle of the night and needs something to distract him. 

He works on dinner while Mac is in the shower, and by the time the water shuts off he has the first round of slabs of French toast on the griddle.  _ I know, not the most healthy meal. _ But he doesn’t really have the energy to make anything else, and eggs are protein, and adding some strawberries on top is fruit, so that’s healthy, right?  _ And I scold Riley for her eating habits. _

He’s putting the first batch on a plate when Mac wanders in, wearing Jack’s one of Jack’s t-shirts and a pair of sweatpants, scrubbing at his wet hair with a towel. “Feel better?” Mac nods, tugging at the loose collar of Jack’s t-shirt, pulling it up to cover the red lines on his collarbones. 

“I made French toast,” Jack says. “Seeing as that Paris cafe was so disappointing, and this is the only vaguely French thing I can cook successfully.” Mac actually chuckles a little, and the tiny smile is the best thing Jack’s seen all day. 

“Here.” He hands Mac a plateful of the golden brown slices. “Don’t drown them in syrup now; or at least don’t blame me if you get a sugar high and go buzzing around for three hours.” Mac shakes his head and sits down with his food at the table.

He doesn’t get a sugar high, as a matter of fact he almost passes out in his plate.  _ He’s absolutely exhausted. _ Jack takes the plate when Mac is done and tells him to go to bed, waving off Mac’s protests about wanting to help clean up. “No, I’m fine, bud, I got this. Go get some rest.” He’s glad Mac doesn’t seem afraid to go lay down and sleep, not the way he was after prison.  _ I thought he was never going to want to sleep again. _

By the time Jack finishes with the dishes, he’s dragging on his feet too. He manages to brush his teeth and change out of his smoke-smelling clothes, but taking a shower sounds like too much work. He collapses on his bed and doesn’t even realize he’s fallen asleep.

_ Mac is screaming. Jack spins in a complete circle, but he has no idea where the sound is coming from. He’s in an endless maze of tunnels, and no matter how fast he runs, he can’t seem to get to the end of them. There are so many twists and turns, and Mac’s voice seems to be coming from every one of them.  _

_ “Mac!” He shouts, but there’s no answer, only harsh panting breaths that he realizes are his own. And then another sobbing cry echoes through the tunnels.  _

_ “Jack!” Mac’s voice is strained and raw and breaking, and there’s nothing but pure fear in it. Jack stumbles along, as fast as he can run. The water is getting deeper and deeper, it’s going to go over his head… _

_ He trips and falls, and instead of falling into the water he’s falling down an endless hole of darkness. And then he’s lying on the ground in a dim room with a mattress in the corner, opposite him. And Mac is lying there, curled up facing away from Jack, and his whole back is covered in deep red gashes. Jack shudders.  _

_ “Mac? Mac, I’m here, it’s okay, I’m gonna get you out…” He tries to stand up but something yanks him back down, and he realizes that his hands are shackled to the wall. He doesn’t know when that happened.  _

_ “Oh, didn’t your mother ever teach you it’s wrong to make promises you can’t keep?” That taunting voice sends ice down Jack’s spine. He looks up to see that Murdoc has somehow just appeared, standing between him and Mac.  _

_ “You sick son of a bitch. Let him go, and I’ll make sure you get whatever you want.” Jack knows he shouldn’t bargain like this, not with anyone, but that’s  _ Mac _ over there, and Jack knows exactly what is about to happen to him. _

_ “Oh, how precious, but I already have everything I want. I want Angus, and I want you to watch while I take everything he has to give. I want you to see, to know that no matter what you promise him, no matter what precious little Angus believes about you, you cannot save him. He is mine, and I will always be able to find him.” Murdoc laughs and leans down, pulling Jack’s chin up to stare into his eyes. “I hope you enjoy the show. I certainly will.”  _

_ Jack shudders. Murdoc walks over to Mac and grabs his shoulder, forcing Mac over until he’s lying on his stomach. Mac’s face is turned toward Jack, and his eyes are a mixture of fear and pain and somehow, still trust. Jack’s heart is shattering, even now Mac still seems to believe he can help him, that Jack is going to get them out. _

_ “I’m so sorry Mac, I’m so sorry.” And all the hope fades out of Mac’s eyes. And then he screams.  _

That scream is all too real. Jack sits bolt upright, scrambling out of bed before he’s even fully aware of what he’s doing.  _ Mac! _

He stubs a toe on the doorjamb rushing into Mac’s room, but he doesn’t even register the pain as he kneels down beside the bed where Mac is thrashing violently, tangled hopelessly in the blankets. 

The kid’s stopped screaming, but he’s sobbing, gasping and desperately repeating, “No, please, stop, no, help me, please, Jack!!” That final cry tears at Jack’s heart.  _ I’m supposed to be there to save him and I wasn’t. Murdoc could have done whatever he wanted and I wouldn’t have been able to stop him. _ He knows Murdoc’s plan all along was supposedly to allow Mac to escape, but Jack’s not sure he believes a single word out of that creep’s mouth. Especially not after seeing that one awful room. 

He instinctively reaches for Mac, but pulls back, hands held uncertainly at his sides.  _ All I want to do is hold onto him and never let go again, but he’s so scared. If he thinks my hands are Murdoc’s he’s going to panic.  _

“Mac? Mac, it’s me, it’s Jack, I’m here now.” He hopes his voice gets through to the terrified kid. 

“J-jack?”

* * *

_ Mac shivers. It’s so cold here, in the dark. He has to get out. He leans over, pulling the needle out of his arm with his teeth and dropping it into his hand. It’s taking too long to pick the cuff locks, Murdoc will be coming back… _

_ He’s just gotten the second one loose when the door opens. There’s no time to try and pretend, to fake being still restrained, to get the needle back into his arm somehow. Mac lets his head drop defeatedly to his bloodstained chest, then looks up guiltily into Murdoc’s cold, pitiless eyes.  _

_ “Tsk tsk tsk, Angus, I go through all this trouble to make you comfortable and you’re so ungrateful.” He yanks Mac’s hair back and stares into his eyes. “Someone really should have taught you better manners.”  _

_ Mac can’t speak, he feels absolutely frozen in fear.  _

_ “I’ve always been rather fond of the saying, ‘Let the punishment fit the crime’.” That’s the only warning Mac gets before something heavy slams into his leg, hard. He hears bone crack, and he bites down on a cry of agony. “But I suppose, if you’re so eager to get out of this little room, I can accommodate that.”  _

_ He won’t cry, he won’t. He forces back the sobs as Murdoc drags him up the steps, across the open space in the middle of the warehouse, and into that dark, red-lit room. Murdoc flings him down on the mattress and turns away, pacing back and forth in front of that table and it’s terrifying contents. Finally, he seems to make a decision, picking something up and walking back to Mac. He’s swinging it in his hand, and Mac can see that it’s an almost innocuous-looking piece of narrow black cord.  _

_ “I wouldn’t want you to think I’m  _ too _ cruel. We’ll start off easy.” He must see that Mac’s terrified gaze is still trapped by the objects on the table. “Don’t worry, we have all the time in the world to work the way through the rest of my...collection.” He runs the end over the cord over Mac’s cheek and shoulder, then yanks his hands in front of him and ties them tightly with a complicated knot Mac isn’t familiar with. His only thought is a hysterical musing that maybe if he hadn’t gotten kicked out of the Boy Scouts he would recognize it. _

_ Murdoc unbuckles Mac’s belt and pulls it free, looking at it for a long moment before setting it on the table. “I’m sure we can find a  _ very _ good use for this later,” he whispers, and Mac shivers.  _

_ Mac tries to fight back as Murdoc begins tugging away his pants, but he’s confused and disoriented and his leg hurts so badly. He kicks frantically, but his clothes are tangled around his ankles now and it’s worse than useless. Murdoc only laughs at the desperate struggles.  _

_ And then there’s a crash of wood tearing free of hinges, and Mac looks up to see Jack in the doorway, gun pointed at Murdoc. “Let him go, Captain Crazy, or I’ll put two in your head before you can blink.” Mac breathes a shaky sigh of relief, Jack is here now and it’s going to be okay.  _

_ Murdoc lifts a gun from the floor, turns, and casually fires three bullets into Jack’s chest. And then Mac does scream.  _

“Mac? Mac, it’s me, it’s Jack.” No, that’s not right, Jack is dead. Murdoc shot him...didn’t he? He blinks awake... _ That was a dream? _ ...and stares up at Jack standing over him.  _ He looks as terrified as I feel. _

“J-jack?”

“Hey kiddo, it’s okay, it was just a dream.” Jack scrubs a hand over his face, looking like he was fighting some of his own demons in the darkness as well. “You’re okay.” He sits down on the edge of the bed, hands twisted together like he doesn’t know what to do with them. 

Mac wants nothing more than for Jack to pull him close so he can rest his head on Jack’s chest and hear his heartbeat and remind himself that Jack is still alive, that he’s here and Mac is safe and they’re going to be alright. 

But he swallows back the desperate plea in his throat.  _ I’m alright. It was just a nightmare. Murdoc didn’t even do anything. Come on, get a grip.  _

His leg is bruised, painfully, where he must have kicked out and slammed it against one of the posts at the foot of the bed, and his feet are tangled up in the sheets. He tries not to remember how both of those figured into his dream. He realizes, dimly, that he kicked all the blankets off himself and he’s shivering. 

“Mac, are you cold?” Jack asks. “Here, are you gonna be okay if I untangle this mess?” Mac nods, and Jack starts untwisting the blankets from around Mac’s legs and pulling them over him. He tucks the last one around Mac, and leaves his hand on Mac’s shoulder, warm and heavy and comforting. 

“I’m not gonna leave this time, okay?” he says softly, and Mac nods. Jack’s eyes look haunted, like he’s scared to be alone too. He sits down heavily on the edge of the bed, and Mac slowly swings his legs over the side and sits next to him, leaning his head on Jack’s shoulder.  Jack puts an arm around his back and Mac relaxes, this feels safe. But Jack is still tense and the hand running up and down Mac’s arm is shaking.

“Jack? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, bud. Just try and get some rest, okay? I’m right here, I’m not gonna let anyone hurt you.” It sounds like he’s reassuring himself as much as he is Mac. 

“Jack…” he whispers softly. “You’re always upset when I don’t tell you what’s wrong. So please, tell me.”

Jack sighs. “You don’t need to hear it. I wish it was never in my head.” He rubs his hand over Mac’s back. 

“I know. I do too. But it is.” Mac takes a breath, and this time he’s the one reaching to put an arm around Jack’s shoulder.  _ Please, please, be okay with that. _ Jack doesn’t push him away or even give him an odd look, and Mac relaxes. “And you keep telling me I don’t have to deal with all this alone. You’re setting a bad example, old man.” Jack laughs, but the sound teeters on the edge of a sob. 

“I just...he had you, and I was right there and I couldn’t get to you. There wasn’t a damn thing I could do except watch,” Jack finally whispers. “But what really scares me is that that wasn’t just a nightmare.” His hands fidget, like he’s imagining holding a gun in them. “All I want to do is protect you, and that maniac took you right under my nose, and I couldn’t stop him.” He shakes his head. “And he’s not even the first one. I’m supposed to have your back, kid, and I keep letting you down. And sometimes I wonder…” He glances at Mac, and Mac can see that Jack’s eyes are glossy with tears. “Sometimes I wonder if you’d be better off with someone better watching out for you.”

“No. I don’t want anyone else watching my back. I want you,” Mac says quietly. “We go out there and we do our jobs. It’s not your fault Ruiz and his guys found me in that garage, and it’s not your fault Murdoc was at my house.” He smiles. “I know you want to be a helicopter parent, and I really do appreciate it, but you can’t hover every second of every day. Then you’d just be creepy and stalkery. I have enough of those.” He shivers a little, the thought of Murdoc hiding out around his house, taking those pictures, is viscerally horrifying. And reminds him that even though those windows have blinds, they’re not very thick, and they’d still let light and silhouettes through. 

“Can we go find some heavy curtains tomorrow?” Mac asks. He knows it’s a huge change of subject, but he also knows Jack is used to how his brain randomly jumps from one thing to another without him having to explain all the connections. “I want to get them before Bozer gets back because he always hates my taste in home decor and he’ll make me get something he thinks is ‘aesthetically pleasing’ or something.” 

“Sure thing, kiddo.” Jack grins. “You know, I still have to pretend I sell wall tile for a living, so I might be even more unbearable when it comes to matching color schemes.” 

Mac chuckles and leans a little closer.  _ I don’t care if we argue about colors and patterns all day.  _ He’s just glad they’re both alive to do it. 

Somewhere out there, Murdoc is biding his time, waiting for the chance to strike again. And Mac knows it. But that doesn’t mean he has to let that monster inside his head.  _ You owe him nothing. You’re stronger than he thinks. You can beat him, and you will. _ But he won’t do it alone. And that’s okay. 


	5. Skull+Electromagnet

### 205-Skull+Electromagnet

PHOENIX FOUNDATION

JUST BECAUSE THEY’RE NOT IN THE FIELD DOES NOT MEAN THE WORK STOPS

“Again.” Jack scrambles back to his feet. “You need to be able to do this in your sleep.”

“I hope you mean that figuratively,” Mac mumbles. “I’m sorry about the black eye.” His nightmares aren’t that frequent anymore, but the one last night was bad.

“Hey, no hard feelings.” Jack glances across the gym to where Sam is carefully stretching, getting ready to start her normal exercise regimen again. She’s finally been cleared for normal activity after her concussion. His own injuries are healing well, they took the stitches out of his shoulder two days ago. They’ll be going back in the field soon, and he’s determined to squeeze in as much training time as possible before then.

He steps in toward Mac, reaching a hand out as if to grab his arm. Mac knocks it away, twists, and then grabs Jack’s own wrist, pulling it behind him and pinning it in a very painful move Jack refers to as a “gooseneck”.

That doesn’t mean Jack’s out of options though. _If getting pinned like that was enough to stop me, I’d never make it in the field._ Instead, he goes down to his knee, using his weight and motion to pull Mac off balance and flip the kid over his back. Before Mac can get up, he puts two fingers on his wrist, enough to remind him that if Jack actually meant to hurt him, he’d be pinned by now. Mac gets up slowly. “I can’t believe I fell for that again,” he mumbles.

It reminds Jack far too much of a year ago. When what had happened in Mac’s past was barely even an afterthought for him. _I was so careless with him._ Now it makes him sick to think that he ever caused Mac to relive some of that trauma. _I’d do anything to take that back._ But Mac has never held it against him.

This time Mac isn’t full of a cocky bravado, he’s not insisting he’s good enough to not need Jack training him. He’s worried, and he’s doubting himself. _That is the absolute last thing I want him doing._ If Mac thinks he can’t win, he might decide it’s not even worth it to fight back and risk pissing an attacker off more.

“You were doin’ real good, though.” Jack gives him an approving nod, trying to salvage what scraps of the kid’s self-confidence can be saved. “Chances are the fact that you fight back with any skill at all is gonna surprise someone, in a normal situation.” Jack hates to use the word ‘normal’ in connection with this at all. _But this isn’t teaching Diane’s work friends about how to fend off a guy in a dark alley, or an overzealous drunk date._ Mac is far more likely to run into someone with Jack’s kind of training. “Let’s try this again, where you don’t give me the chance to use anything against you, okay?”

He sets up again, and this time Mac changes tactics, clearly planning on twisting his wrist and throwing him to the mat. He’s doing pretty well, but Jack’s going to make sure his technique is as perfect as they can get it. “That’s good, Mac, just keep your elbows bent. You want to have control. I know you want them as far away from you as possible, but you want them on the ground more, okay?” He nods, and then Jack is falling, definitely not of his own volition. _Ow. Definitely still some residual burns on that shoulder._

“Okay, don’t do it to _me,_ but once you have them on the ground, knock ‘em out if you can and run like hell,” Jack says, rolling over so he can sit up. “At this point all you want to do is get away and keep them from coming after you.” He sits up, wincing. “I think we’re good for the day. That’s at least some of the basics. And in a real fight, you need to remember to go as hard and as fast as you can. You only get a few seconds of adrenaline, so make it count.” That’s one of the first things Jack learned in training. _Fights aren’t like they make it look in the movies. You have a very limited window to take your opponent down._ And the adrenaline crash afterward is a bitch. “And you fight as dirty as you need to to do it. Kick, bite, go for the eyes,” he sees Mac cringe, “I know it’s messy, but it is effective. If they can’t see you they can’t chase you. And you know how to kick out a knee.”

“A solid kick to the front or side.” Mac nods. “Because the joint’s range of motion is limited in those directions.”   _Explaining this stuff to the point where he can put it in physics terms usually helps._

They’ve gone over this a dozen times but Jack needs it to be drilled into Mac’s head like his physics formulas. Mac told him, after one of the worse nightmares, that he used science or math problems to dissociate and ignore what was being done to him. “I want this to be what you’re thinking of when something happens. I need you to remember this, just like you’d rattle off the composition of sugar or sulfuric acid or something.”

Mac nods. “I can do that.”

“Yeah, you can. Because you’re not theirs for the taking, and you don’t need to let them think so. Ever.” Jack smiles softly. “I know you get a little weird about me taking your dad’s place, but I’m gonna tell you right now, this is exactly what I would teach a kid of my own.” He’s taught his nephews and nieces, as soon as they’re old enough to understand, and he taught Riley. “Because you are valuable, and important, and no one gets to tell you otherwise. And maybe I can’t always be there to make sure people respect you, but I can teach you everything I know to protect yourself.” He wants to say more. _Those people don’t get to determine what you’re worth. Because you are worth infinitely much, and it breaks my heart that anyone taught you differently. That anyone made you find your value in what you can do, and not who you are, and if I have to spend the rest of my life undoing that, I will._ But he doesn’t want to overdo it. _We’ll have plenty of time for all those conversations, for figuring out how this father-son thing works._ All he knows is that Mac deserved so much better than he got.

* * *

MAC’S HOUSE

NOW MORE LIKE A HAUNTED HOUSE

Riley brushes a cobweb out of her hair when she pushes open the door. Not a real cobweb, thankfully, just a huge tangle of the gauzy stuff like what’s all over her own apartment right now. She still has the stuff from last year, Sam is weirdly enthusiastic about Halloween and Riley is just slightly afraid to visit her old roommate’s apartment.

“Sorry I’m late, I was helping my mom move the last of her stuff.” Diane finally decided on the industrial loft and signed the lease. _I was so glad we were all on temporary injury leave, because I was running out of excuses for disappearing for days at a time._ Now she won’t have to worry about it anymore. Unless Diane plans on having her over for dinner more often.

She knows Jack was avoiding coming around to Riley’s because of her mom being there. Well, that and that he was afraid to leave Mac alone for more than five minutes. She’s got a string of text messages from an increasingly confused and overwhelmed Mac. **What do you do when he’s this hovery? How long is this going to last? Does he do this to you?**

Riley’s been quick to reassure him that helicopter parenting is in fact Jack’s trademark way of showing his love. She thinks he might have stopped staying with her for a week after a bad mission about three years into their partnership. He came over a lot after Como, too. _I don’t blame him. I’m worried about Mac too._ She lost Murdoc’s trail completely when he ditched the car he originally drove off in with Fletcher. _He’s still out there somewhere and he still wants Mac._ He left him with a few scars, this time. Next time they won’t be so lucky, she’s sure.

She’s glad Mac agreed to get the house alarmed. _He doesn’t want to move, but this place isn’t exactly the safest._ Now, it should be a little better. He didn’t go for as much security as Jack clearly would have liked, but it is something. She doesn’t know how he’s going to be able to sleep in this house; according to Jack he was still having the occasional nightmare when he was staying _there_. It’s going to be a long time before the trauma from Murdoc fades.

 _At least he had the work on Diane’s apartment decorations to distract him._ They look even better than she’d been imagining, and Mom is thrilled. _She’s so excited that she has a place that feels like it’s actually in style._ Riley’s personal favorite is the clock made out of a huge gear, she’s tempted to ask for one for herself even though it doesn’t fit her apartment’s style at all. _It’s just cool._ And she can tell Mac really had fun creating everything out of the random junk he and Jack picked up at scrapyards and roadside sales.

Every time Jack brought him over to the apartment to drop off another finished project, he always waited in the car. _I was hoping he would at least come up and see the place, that maybe he and Mom could have a civil conversation._ Apparently it’s still too soon for both of them.

Bozer nearly runs her down as he rushes down the hallway. “You were right, Mac, I found the extra-large spiders in the attic.” He doesn’t see Riley until one of the spider’s legs catches on her jacket, flinging it back into Bozer’s face. “Augh!” He falls backward awkwardly, flinging the whole box of spiders away from him.

Riley can’t stop laughing. “Boze, you _knew_ they weren’t real! You just pulled them out of the attic!”

“Oh my god, I didn’t even see you there,” Bozer gasps, scrambling back to his feet. “I thought they just started spontaneously attacking me.” He shudders, brushing at his face, which is covered with some real cobwebs now as well. “Next time don’t throw them at my face!”

“I didn’t even touch them!” Riley is still gasping for breath, she can hardly get the words out. “It caught on my jacket because you were going too fast to realize anyone was in the way.” She picks up one of the spiders from the box and flings it at him. “This is what it looks like when I throw them intentionally.” Bozer bats it away with a glare.

“Stop tormenting him, Riley,” Sam shouts from inside the living room. “Or he’ll probably refuse to keep helping us decorate.”

Mac helps Bozer pick up the spilled box of black and white spiders. “Good to see you, Riley. I think Jack could use some help with the fake blood.”

“Let me get this straight. You just got permission to move into your house after a psychotic stalker kidnapped you from inside it, and you decide to turn it into something straight out of Stephen King?” Riley does _not_ get it.

“It’s a yearly tradition,” Bozer insists. “Mac’s grandpa started it. We used to have everyone in the neighborhood over. Mr. Schwartz used to come over in his old army uniform.” He grins.

“It’s one of the few things I really remember about Harry,” Mac says softly. “He loved helping Bozer and me make the most elaborate Halloween costumes we could think of. We never bought them. We always made them with what we could find around the house.” He grins. “The only year I didn’t really have to make something was the year he found his old hockey jersey from Minnesota.” Mac grins. “Pretty sure it’s still in one of those boxes in the attic.”

Bozer grins. “You looked hilarious in that thing. You were twelve, and it came down to your knees.”

RIley grins at the thought of a younger version of Mac so proud of the Halloween costume his grandpa found for him. Jack chuckles, standing up from where he’s putting bloody handprints on the window. That looks a lot better than the food coloring and corn syrup mixture Riley’s used to using. _Probably something Mac and Bozer whipped up that they use for films._

“Hey Ri, you wanna take over? I’m getting blood all over my third favorite Metallica t-shirt.”  Riley glances down at her own burgundy top. “Hey Mac, is this stuff washable?”

“Um, not really. Sorry.”

Mickey nuzzles at Jack’s hands, and he shakes his head. “Bud, if this isn’t washable we don’t want it on you. Neighbors’ll think you’re a biter.” He nudges the dog away with his knee.

“How many Metallica shirts do you have?” Bozer asks.

“Um, about ten. Wait, the one I got at the concert last year makes it eleven.” Riley grins. She has a matching one. “You know, I think we could really sell the whole haunted house deal if we did what me and my cousin George did when I was thirteen.” He shakes his head. “Man, George was crazy. Anyway, we broke into the town morgue and stole a real. dead. body.” Riley groans, she’s heard this one every single Halloween. “We set him up in a chair on his front porch, okay. Right? Just like this.” Jack leans back stiffly on one of the bar stools, making a zombie-like face. “It scared the bejesus out of them little kids, man. They scattered like roaches. You can't top that kind of authenticity, you know?” Riley rolls her eyes. _He kept trying to convince me it was a good idea._

“You stole a body from a _morgue_?” Bozer looks truly horrified.

“His funeral wasn’t till the next weekend anyway,” Jack says flippantly.

“Jack, I would _never_ tell that story again,” Bozer says.

“That’s a felony,” Mac mumbles, looking more than a little concerned. _How do you know that?_ She’s pretty sure that wasn’t part of the list of charges on his rap sheet. _Unless no one ever caught him._ She has to admit stealing a body doesn’t sound like Mac, but she wouldn’t put it past him to have decided the normal autopsy system was flawed…

Jack shakes his head, chuckling. “It’s not a felony. It’s-It’s like a misdemeanor.”

“No, I’m pretty sure it _is_ a felony,” Riley says. “I can look it up.”

“I can’t believe you’re taking their side. I expected more from you, Riles.” Jack frowns. “It’s definitely just a slap on the wrist.”

Suddenly, someone screams. Riley jumps, gasping, glancing around the room to see what happened. Cage is pulling her phone out of her back pocket.

“Sorry guys.” She shrugs. “New ringtone.” _Of course it was._ Riley shakes her head. _She really does go overboard on the whole Halloween vibe._ “Matty needs us at the office.”

“Now? Like right now?” Jack asks, looking down at his shirt.

“Yeah.” Riley’s own phone is buzzing too.

They all head for the door, and Jack’s still muttering, “Don’t tell me none of y’all ever stole a dead body before.”

* * *

“Dalton, what the hell happened to you?” Matty asks the second they walk into the War Room. Jack looks down at his blood-spattered t-shirt. _I knew I was going to regret letting myself get roped into Halloween decorating._

“I, uh, cut myself shaving.”

“With what? A lawnmower?” Matty shakes her head. “As long as it doesn’t interfere with your ability to run a field op, I don’t really care.” She pulls up a group of dossiers on the screen. “ A CIA tactical team was returning from Senegal with a prisoner when their plane went down. The aircraft and the passengers are all still missing. This is a complete list of everyone who was on board.” Jack frowns, glancing at the blacked-out dossier in the center of the group, then up at the others. _I’ve got a bad feeling about this._

“This is Commander Wheeler’s team,” Cage says.

“As in Byron Wheeler? The vice president’s son?” Bozer asks. _It’s fairly well known that Wheeler is a CIA operative, but most people don’t know that he’s the leader of one of the top black ops teams in the agency._ He’s been running top-level missions since before his father got chosen to be the president’s running mate, and he’s refused to stop doing his duty just because his father’s position puts him more at risk.

Matty nods. “Yes, which is why the CIA wants to keep this quiet. The VP is anxious to get his son and the rest of his team back safely.”

“Hey Matty, I thought you said this list of passengers was complete,” Jack says. “The prisoner’s info has all been redacted.”

“The CIA is insisting the prisoner’s identity is need-to-know, and that we don’t need to know.” Matty frowns. “Oversight and I are working on convincing them otherwise, but at the moment your objective is to find that plane and the team.” Something about this doesn’t sit right with Jack. _Ops where we aren’t given all the information make me nervous._ He’s seen too many of them go horribly wrong.

“What happened there, where the plane drops off the map?” Mac asks.

Matty consults the file on her tablet. “They flew into an electrical storm, lost comms and instrumentation.”

“A storm strong enough to knock out a plane's signal beacon? That's terrifying.” Riley shudders.

Mac glances at the chart on-screen. “The last telemetric reading shows the plane dropped 5,000 feet right before losing its signal, but the data cuts out right before recording a crash. It looks like Navy and Coast Guard search and rescue is being focused here, along the same flight path. But so far they haven’t even found any wreckage.” He’s looking at this like he does every science problem, that cocked head and furrowed eyebrows stare that means he’s doing math in his head again.

“Well, that's 'cause they're searching in the wrong place.” Jack’s seen readings like this before. In the cockpit of a battered freight plane over the Pacific Ocean. _And a CIA tactical team’s pilot would have exactly the training I did about a situation like that._

“How could you possibly know that?” Bozer asks.

Jack studies the last readings and the plane’s projected flight path. “I think the pilot put them into a nosedive intentionally.”

“What are you saying, he wanted to crash faster?” Matty shoots Jack a skeptical look.  

“No, Matty, I'm saying he wanted to build up speed so he could use a controlled descent. That’s how I got outta that little mess in El Salvador.” It’s also why Matty insists that “Fly By Night Air Service” will remain a relic of the past. _I thought it had a nice ring to it._ But Matty seems to hate every code name he’s ever come up with, for himself or for the cover businesses he’s run over the years. “Which would put them right about...oh hell no.” Jack steps back slightly.

He’s not overly superstitious. But after years in the field, and more than a few unexplained events, he’s not taking his chances. “That puts them right in the triangle of death. And need I remind you that the Bermuda Triangle is as cursed as the day is long?” He shakes his head. “And going on an op, in there, when we’ve clearly got some baddie the CIA is being all hush-hush about, that ain’t gonna be good.”

“You don’t actually believe all those stories about the Triangle, right?” Mac asks. “Because scientifically…”

“Scientifically, there is a redacted dossier on that screen that the CIA is refusing to hand _Matty._ One of their own.” He looks at the others. “And there is a plane no one can account for.”

“I think I can fix that for us,” Riley says. “I’m going to task a satellite to those coordinates and see if I can spot wreckage, or the plane itself.”

“I’m telling you  right now, if they went down in the Devil’s Triangle, they’re as good as gone. They’re in the Upside Down, nothin’ we can do for them.” This case is giving Jack the heebie jeebies for a lot more reasons than the fact that they’re about to voluntarily go into a place that really does have some bizarre occurrences. _Granted, Mac will probably scientifically explain every single one of them._ The kid’s good at wrecking ghost hunter shows, Jack discovered after one night when the kid couldn’t sleep and they ended up finding some random show on the internet. Jack laughed half the night listening to Mac debunk story after story.

No, what really bothers Jack is this op. _That’s a CIA team, that the CIA is pawning off retrieval on._ Clearly, they chose the Phoenix for a reason. But without knowing the identity of the prisoner, Jack can only guess.

He’s trying not to think that it could be Murdoc. _We were the first agency to bring him in. So we should be given access to information about him. Right?_ Murdoc is scarier than any ghost. _But whoever this is, if it’s not him, could be just as bad._

“Stop complaining, Dalton. And change your shirt. You’re all wheels up in twenty.” Jack sighs. He knows there’s no point in arguing, and somewhere out there, there really is a CIA team that is in serious trouble. _I guess we’re just gonna have to deal with it._

“Fine, But I’m getting fully tacced up. Two guns, Matty, two guns. One on the hip, one on the chest.”

“Okay, just go!” Matty’s actually cracking a bit of a smile.

“Okay, but I’m telling you, Matty, this ain’t a job for us. It’s a job for the Ghostbusters!”

* * *

The transport plane bounces slightly in a gust of wind, and Sam watches Mac shudder and move a little closer to Jack. _The storm’s not as bad as it was when Wheeler’s plane went down, but it’s still nasty._ And she’s well aware that he’s afraid of heights, especially after he was on that chopper that went down last year. _So plane crash can’t be a fun thing to wonder about._ She’s trying to think of a good way to take his mind off the situation. Bozer’s sitting directly across from her, and she blames that for the fact that she decides he’s going to be her target.

“I cannot believe Riley scared you with a fake spider.” Sam shakes her head.

“Spiders are terrifying!” Bozer insists. “Anything with that many legs...ugh!”

“Does that apply to octopuses too?” Sam replies with a sly grin, and Bozer actually shudders.

“But you had an octopus in that one movie you made!” Mac insists, and it does look like he’s relaxing a little.

“I know, that’s why they scare me!” Bozer insists. “I freaked myself out!” He glares at Sam. “I would think you of all people would understand that spiders at least are horrifying. You’re from Australia, and they’ve got all kinds of scary deadly ones.”

Sam shakes her head. “Nope. Not spiders.”

“Okay, how about kangaroos?” Jack asks. “They look all cute and then whammo they’re ripping your guts out with those feet.” She shakes her head. “Oh right, you’re like the human version of one, of course they don’t scare you.” That one actually makes Mac laugh. _A human kangaroo. Never really thought of it like that. Oh Jack._

“Would you even tell us if we guessed it?” Riley asks.

“Admitting your fears is a serious liability for an interrogator.” Sam leans back, crossing her arms.

‘Well, you’re not planning on interrogating any of us soon, I hope.” Jack chuckles. “Come on, you can’t use that excuse when you’re among friends.”

“Well, it also makes you an easy mark for pranks.” She has to admit, though, she misses her and Riley’s occasional spontaneous prank wars. _A whole team one could be...fun._ “Okay, if you guess it before we land, I’ll tell you.”

“Koalas.”

“Stingrays.”

“Platypus.”

“Chris Hemsworth.”

Sam shakes her head. “Nothing Australian.” _Admittedly, the dingoes did freak me out a little a few times when I was a kid. But that’s not what I’m really scared of._

“Doctors,” Riley suggests.

“Clowns. With those freaky painted grins.” Jack shudders. _Yep, they’re doing exactly what I expected, projecting their own fears onto me._

“Squirrels?” Mac asks. _There has to be a good story behind that one._

“Chihuahuas?” Bozer suggests.

“Eels? Zombies? Geese? Bees? Needles? Mice? Ninjas?”

“Not even close.” Sam chuckles.

“Guys we have Sat images!” Riley says, which puts an end to the questioning for the moment. “Good news is, I found the plane, right where Jack said it would be.”

“I’m sorry, were you doubting my mad skills?” Jack asks. “No need to sound so surprised. Just cause I’m not Mac doesn’t mean I don’t know stuff.”

“You said good news, what’s the bad news?” Bozer asks.

“Not bad, more like...interesting.” Riley frowns. “Our plane is located on Goat Island.”

“Goat Island? That was the original training base for the Navy Raiders in World War II.” Jack stands up and walks over to Riley’s shoulder. “It was never officially decommissioned.”

“As soon as the war ended, so did all transmissions from the island.” Riley looks up at him. “I found the original incident report from 1945. The navy sent in a crew to investigate, but they found the island abandoned. Every member of the 13th Division had vanished.”

Jack turns around. “Okay, Mac, logically explain this one.”

* * *

GOAT ISLAND

SEVENTY-YEAR-OLD MYSTERY SITE

Mac’s glad when they land, even though Jack won’t stop going on about a cursed island. The storm got worse the closer they got to Goat Island, and despite the fact that Jack insists he could do the same thing the CIA pilot did, Mac doesn’t want to test it. He still remembers Kazakhstan and the helicopter.

“For the tenth time, Jack, there are no such things as curses!” Cage insists as they leave the plane. “It’s all coincidences, and people just like to see patterns in those. It’s a psychological phenomenon, not a supernatural one.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Cage,” Jack mutters. “Because in the movies, it’s always the people who insist curses aren’t real who wind up dead.”

“Come on, Jack, she’s right. Coincidences are statistically inevitable,” Mac insists.

Riley comes up beside them, closing her rig and stuffing it in her backpack to keep the light drizzle from affecting it. “Well, I don’t know if this is what you guys would call a coincidence, but both our GPS and Sat signals are down. I can’t even get a call in to Phoenix.”

“Storm’s probably causing interference,” Mac says. “We _are_ on an island in the middle of nowhere.” He’s trying to keep his eyes on their path so he doesn’t trip over something and make a complete fool of himself.

“No, no, man, this is how it starts. See, first the Triangle cuts off all communication with the outside world…”

“You’re talking about this like it’s some kind of malevolent entity, Jack,” Cage chuckles. “It’s just an island.”

“Didn’t you see that _Guardians of the Galaxy_ movie this summer with the rest of us?” Jack asks. “That whole damn _planet_ was a ‘mal-whatever entity’.”

“All I remember is the raccoon thinking tape was gonna be a good way to stop the talking tree from blowing them all up. It reminded me of Mac,” Sam chuckles.

“Wait, if he’s Mac, does that make me Chris Pratt?” Jack asks. “Cause that would be kinda awesome.” Riley facepalms.

“Guys, I’ve got debris,” Mac says. A few scattered and twisted scraps of metal are just visible through the undergrowth. “Plane must have impacted here.” He wonders how hard it hit, if anyone will still be alive.

They pick their way through the dripping plants to the main crash site. Fortunately the plane’s fuselage appears to still be in one piece. Mac shivers, looking at it. _It had to be terrifying to be trapped in that thing as it was going down, knowing you’re already too low to bail out, wondering if the impact will kill you or if you’re just going to die slowly later from injuries._ He rubs at the scar along his stomach, he knows it’s only a phantom pain but he can feel the heavy ache of internal bleeding. _Will we even be in time to save any of this crew?_

“Hello? Commander Wheeler? Anyone?” Riley calls, gun raised. There’s no answer but a strange croaking birdcall. “This is a Phoenix Foundation tactical team, we’re here to get you out.” There’s still no response. _Of course, this couldn’t be easy._

Mac glances around; he can’t see any signs of the team or hear anything. It seems like the plane is deserted. “I’m going to go in and check the cabin.”

“Alone?” Jack asks. “Mac, buddy, I don’t like the idea of you by yourself with some unknown psycho prisoner possibly still in there.”

“If any of the team was still in a condition to do so, they’d be watching the prisoner. So either this person is also dead, is still secured inside, or managed to escape. And if they did escape, they probably wouldn’t stay with the one thing that would give away their location.”

“I’ll go with him,” Cage offers. “You watch our perimeter, check for any signs of life, blood trail, anything.” Jack nods. Clearly, he’s not any too happy about leaving Mac, but he definitely knows as well as Mac does that those options are the likeliest ones, and if the prisoner is in any position to be dangerous, they’re most likely not still inside the plane. _I wouldn’t stay around a crashed plane if it was me_.

Cage jumps up and pulls herself easily into the plane, and then helps Mac in. He glances around. The entire cabin is totally empty. There’s some blood, and what looks like bullet holes, which makes Mac a little on edge. _Were those from something that happened during the extraction, or…_

“Guys, the whole crew is gone. Do you have any signs of life out there?”

“Lots of plane parts, but no people.” Mac can hear Bozer swatting at the bugs whining around. “I’m starting to get a little creeped out.”

“Guys, I have blood,” Riley says. “Someone definitely survived long enough to leave a couple handprints on some of this wing. Maybe one of the tac team pulled the others free of the crash?”

“If there’s blood here, there has to be more somewhere. Keep an eye out,” Jack says.

Mac glances around the room again, his eyes are adjusting to the darkness inside. There’s a chair in the middle of the cabin, with a pair of open handcuffs attached to it, and blood staining the floor underneath. He stumbles back a couple steps, shaking. _Dark. Cold. Metal around my wrists._ Murdoc’s laugh echoes in his ears, his chest sears with a sudden pain.

“Mac. Mac!” Someone is shaking his shoulder.

“Don’t, stop, don’t touch me,” he gasps, curling in on himself. “No, no, no.” _Jack, where is Jack?_ “Jack?” The hands pull away, but Mac can’t stop shaking, pressing himself up against the side of the plane. _Don’t touch me._

“It’s just me, Mac, it’s Sam.” He blinks, and yes, it’s just her standing there. He shakes himself out of the panic and takes a couple deep breaths. Cage looks like she’s on edge and worried. “Look, there’s nothing here. Let’s go back out with the others.” He nods, not trusting himself to look at the chair again. _He’s not here. You’re safe, at least from him._ Cage is talking into comms now. “The cabin’s empty. We’re coming back to you. And it looks like the tac team either released the prisoner to move them, or they got loose and maybe caused the crash.”

“Wouldn’t there be a black box?” Mac asks. “In the tail section? It might have kept recording after the transmissions failed. If we can get it, maybe Riley can pull the data off it and find out what happened.”

“Okay, we’ll get that, and then we’ll go.” Sam picks her way toward the tail, and Mac follows. There’s a strange smell, and the closer they get, the stronger it is. _It smells like...jet fuel. Maybe the tanks sprung a leak when they landed._

“That’s odd, this seat has been jammed in here.” Sam rocks it sideways, clearly trying to make enough of a gap to slide through, and then Mac hears a strange sizzling sound and sees fire leap across the floor.  

“Run!” He yells, but Cage doesn’t need to be told, she’s already rushing back through the cabin. Mac follows her, leaping out the door. The fire is burning loudly, when it hits the fuel tanks the explosion will be massive. And deadly. _We can’t get out of the way in time._

He can see the plane door laying across a pile of debris. He shoves Sam down, curls around her despite muffled protests, and pulls the door over them both. _I really hope this is enough._ But there’s no time to second guess, because the next second, there’s an ear-shattering roar and a wave of unbearable heat. And then he blacks out.

* * *

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Bozer mutters.

“None of this makes sense, man,” Jack says. “It’s the damn Triangle.”

“Come on, Jack. We’ve established that no one disappeared. Someone dragged them off.”

“Yeah, probably whatever lives on this island. It’s eatin’ em right now, I’m telling you.” Jack’s pretty sure man-eating goat monsters don’t exist, but he can’t quite banish the image from his mind.

“I’ve got a trail,” Riley says. “It looks like someone was dragged along here.”

“Ooh yeah.” Jack can see the scuff marks and blood when he makes his way over to her. “Whoever was doing the dragging, they were headed for that.”

“Is that the old Raider base?” Bozer asks.

“Looks like. Maybe they were hoping they’d find medical supplies.” Jack would have done the same. _If I knew I was close to a military post, even an abandoned one, that’s where I’d go_ . He can hear Mac and Sam inside the plane, they’re hoping to get the black box and see what happened just before the plane went down. _If someone pulled out the survivors, it probably means some of the team lived._ Jack’s pretty sure a prisoner whose dossier is fully redacted isn’t the kind to take the time to try and save a team sent to capture them. _Except if it’s someone like Mac._ The kid would probably have been considered pretty dangerous, after everything, but Jack knows he would have done everything he could to save even the people wanting to lock him up.

And then there’s a chaos of incoherent yelling from the comms. _What the..._ Jack turns around just in time to see a blast of flame, and the resulting shockwave knocks him and Riley and Bozer backward.

 _No, no, no, no._ Jack staggers back to his feet, ears ringing, and runs toward the still-smoking plane. “Don’t be dead. Please, God, don’t you dare be dead.” After everything, after Murdoc and Walsh and all the other people they’ve faced, he can’t believe that Mac’s going to die in an explosion. _He can’t._

He glances around; _if I was Mac where would I take cover?_ He knows he and Cage had at least gotten out of the plane before it blew. The plane door is awkwardly angled over a heap of debris, and Jack heads straight for it. It’s the only sheltering thing here.

“Don’t you dare be dead, you hear me?” He yanks the door off, ignoring that the metal is still hot and scorching his fingers. Mac is huddled underneath it, curled around Cage, who looks insulted but uninjured. Mac slowly rolls to let her get up, and then makes a short, sharp gasp, that Jack knows is the only indication of pain he’s going to let slip out.

Jack inspects the kid a little more closely; he was so glad to see that Mac was alive that he wasn’t too careful to check what condition of alive. It doesn’t look terrible. The soles of his shoes have partly melted, and his pantlegs, below the knee, are scorched and charred. Both he and Cage look like they’ve gotten sunburned, and they’re covered in soot and a bit of ash.

“Damn, kid, are you alright?”

“Little singed, but I think I’ll be okay.” Mac stumbles to his feet, staggering on his shoes’ warped soles. “Ow. Okay. Maybe more than a little.”

“Sit down.” Jack yanks the kid’s shoes off and tosses them aside. Mac’s feet look red and the sole of the left one is slightly blistered, but Jack’s seen worse injuries from hiking. He was afraid he was going to discover that the shoe sole stuck to the kid’s skin or something awful.

“Now will you believe me when I tell you this place is cursed?”

“That was no accident,” Sam says. “Someone rigged the plane to explode when anyone went looking for the flight recorder.”

“A tac team wouldn’t do that,” Riley says.

“So, a prisoner escapes, drags every member of the team off that plane, and then sets a trap?” Jack shudders. “Who the hell are we dealing with here?” _The only way this person is anything like Mac is that they know how to make things go boom._

“Me.” Everyone, Jack included, turns to stare at Cage. “Well, at least someone trained the same way. No one does something like that normally. That’s a black ops level tactic, confusing the enemy and bottlenecking them into doing what you want. Take any evidence of the entire incident and move it, leave the only option for finding out what happened with a booby-trap in front of it.” She sighs. “Whoever this is, they’re highly trained and very dangerous.”

“Do you think they’re ex-Scorpion?” Jack asks.

“Possibly. When the agency went under, a lot of its people didn’t get picked up immediately. If they’re in the wind, they’re probably mercs for hire. One of them could have ended up on the CIA’s radar.” Now it’s starting to make sense that the agency handed over this rescue op. _They knew Phoenix had a former Scorpion agent on their top field team._

“Riley, you and Bozer set up camp here. When that fire dies down, maybe you can take another crack at getting that black box and sorting data.” They’re made to withstand an explosion like that, and Riley is a miracle worker anyway. Riley nods, and Jack notices her hand twitch to the gun on her hip.

“You got your extra mags?”

“Always.” She pats her tac belt. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep Bozer from getting eaten by the Creature from the Goat Island Lagoon.” She glances up at the clearing sky. “And I’ll see what I can do about fixing our little satellite problem. I’m sure Matty’s not happy that we’re still incommunicado.” She glances at the plane. “Especially if sat view picked up our little heat plume.” Jack nods. Matty’s probably not going to be very happy right now.

“Mac, Cage, and I are gonna head up to the old Raider base. See if we can find any sign of the tac team.” He thinks hunting down a dangerous trained killer might actually be preferable to trying to explain this mess to Matty.

He and Cage and Mac set off down the trail, following the blood smear. “Now let’s agree on one thing, right now,” Jack says. “At some point, somebody's gonna say, "Let's split up," and it's gonna sound like a great idea at the time, but believe me, it's not. Cause right after any group in any horror movie says, "Let's split up," it's always the handsome jock who's the first one horribly butchered by whatever ghoul's lurking in the shadows.”

Sam laughs. “And in this scenario, you're the handsome jock?”

“That's obvious, Cage. Just so we're in agreement, though, now, ain't gonna be no splittin' up, is that cool?”

“We're absolutely not splitting up, Jack.” Mac’s eyes are worried. “None of us are leaving the group. For any reason.” He shudders a little, and Jack can tell the thought of being alone in this place is spooking him. _Something happened on that plane. Something besides the fire bomb._ Mac’s eyes have the haunted look they get when he wakes up from nightmares. He’s thinking about Murdoc again.

“And, hey, as for your other concern, don't lose any sleep,” Cage adds.

“What do you mean, I'm not that handsome? Are you factoring in charm? Charm goes a long way.”

They’re at the base fence, now, and the scuff marks follow the road through a rickety, broken gate and across the compound. “So, it looks like the blood trail leads right to the radio tower,” Mac says, hooking his fingers in the wire and leaning against the fence to get a better look. “Maybe one of the tac team escaped and tried to call for help?”

“I think we should at least check it out.” Sam starts to push through the gap in the fence. Jack points to the faded “Military Installation, No Trespassing” sign hanging by one corner from the gate.

“Maybe we should heed the warning sign, what do you think?”  

“You stole a dead body from a morgue, since when does trespassing bother your conscience?” Mac asks. _Oh, you’re just having too much fun with that._ He’s never going to live that story down now.

Cage smirks. “Jack, if we get in trouble, we'll just call on your roguish charm to come and protect us.”

“Ooh, ‘roguish.’ Yeah, I like that. I can do that.” He grins. “Hey, maybe if you and Riley ever invite me to another one of your Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, I can add that to my character.”

“I’m not sure ‘roguish charm’ is going to help you if you singlehandedly awaken another pack of hellhounds and a cave troll _at the same time_.”

“How was I supposed to know the hidden door was an entrance to the underworld?” Jack glances around him as they start across the open space between the fence and the base. _This is not a good place to be right now._

“It had demonic glyphs all over it. If you had bothered to ask the right questions, you would have known that.”

“I think you were just making it up as you go to kill me off.”

“Nope. The troll was guarding one of the seven doors of the underworld. That was going to be important later in the quest.” _She takes designing these things way too seriously._ Jack glances up at the building looming ahead of them in the drizzling rain. _If anything looks like a door to the underworld, it’s this._

* * *

NAVY RAIDER TRAINING BASE

NOT THE MOST FUN PLACE TO BE IN THE DARK

The storm breaks again in full force as Mac, Jack, and Sam duck through the doors of the base. Rain sheets down, rattling on tin roofs and cracked windows, and lightning blazes down occasionally, lighting the building up with blinding whiteness. Mac shudders. _There’s no such thing as ghosts or curses._ Never mind that this setting is straight out of one of Bozer’s horror movie scripts. _There was one about a curse, once._ Back when they were in high school. He remembers filming part of it at Weathers’s garage. _I can’t remember if I died in that one or not._ It’s been a while.

“Radio tower, this way.” Jack smacks his flashlight as they climb the steps and it begins flickering. “Dude, I’m telling you, something isn’t right.”

“Bad batteries?” Cage asks.

“That’s impossible. All our gear is cleaned and repaired after missions, and they put fresh batteries in the flashlights and radios before putting them back in the tac room.” He shakes his head. “Maybe when that blast from the plane knocked me over, the impact damaged it.”

“Maybe your roguish charm is too powerful,” Cage suggests. Jack groans.

The radio tower’s door is wide open, and the blood smear ends on the floor in the middle of the room. “Looks like nothing’s been touched in here since the 13th Division vanished,” Mac says, glancing around at the old equipment he’s only seen in history books.

“It’s like they’re still in here, man.” Jack wanders a little further in, and as his elbow brushes a screen, a static spark jumps in the lightning-charged air. “Ooh, did you see that? Please tell me you saw that.” His eyes are comically wide. “The spirits are sending us messages from the other side…”

Mac bends over the old radio, the last flash of lightning showed him something he wants to take a better look at it. “I think something a lot more alive was trying to send a message, Jack. The dust here has been disturbed. It looks like someone started this old hand-crank radio.”

“Guys, we have satellite imagery back up and running,” Riley’s voice comes over the comms. “But heads up, the connection’s not that great.”

“Yeah, something’s messing with the signal,” Bozer says. “We think it might be the storm.” Mac can hear rain drumming on the comms as well, it sounds like they’ve taken shelter in part of the plane.

“Or it could be all the metal around the crash site.”

“Or maybe we’re all just covered in dumb sauce for flying into the Triangle in the first place,” Jack grumbles. The comms cut out in a burst of static. “Riley? Riley? Hey, anyone there?” The comms are totally dead. “You don’t think they...something got them, do you?”

“I think it’s just the storm,” Mac says, but his voice is drowned out as a massive crash of thunder literally shakes the tower.

“Dude, the same thing happened in _The Conjuring._ Spoiler alert, it did not end well.”

“Jack, that’s not what happens in _The Conjuring,_ ” Cage says, rolling her eyes. “I’ve seen that movie every Halloween for the past four years. It never happened.”

Radio static buzzes, and all three of them jump. Mac rushes over to the old reciever. “Guys, I think this radio might still be working. Maybe we can…”

A voice echoes in the room. “All channels, this is Commander Byron Wheeler. Is anyone receiving? Over.”

Mac glances at the others, grinning, before responding. “Commander, this is a Phoenix Foundation tactical rescue team. Vice President Wheeler is going to be very glad to know you’re still alive.”

“Yeah, Dad’s kind of a worrier,” Wheeler responds with a chuckle. “Have you found the rest of my team?”

“They’re not with you?” Mac asks. _Maybe he’s the only one who got away from the crash on his own. This blood trail could be his. But why wouldn’t he have stayed here?_

“No. I don’t know where they are. The last thing I remember is our prisoner getting loose and the plane going down. Next thing I knew, I woke up here.”

“Where’s _here_?”

“No idea. I woke up in a dark room with a splitting headache. Been trying to get a radio call out ever since.”

“Is there anything you can describe for us about this room?” Cage asks.

“Well, it’s dark. The floor is cold, like stone or...maybe concrete.” Mac flinches, fighting off a wave of panic and memories. _It’s damp. And cold. Smells like mold..._ No, no, no. He can’t go back there. He has a job to do. He takes  a deep breath and shifts slightly, and his elbow brushes the radio antenna, making a burst of static. _That’s it._

“Just hang on, Commander, we’re going to find you.”

“How?” Jack asks. “This place is huge, and all we’ve got to go on is “cold” and “dark”.”

“We don’t need him to tell us where he is, we need him to show us.” When Jack and Cage frown, Mac decides they’re going to want an explanation for this one. “When I bumped the antenna, you all heard the static, right?” They nod. “Well, static means the antenna is pointing in the wrong direction to pick up the signal. Clear voice means we’re going the right way.”

“Like rabbit ears,” Jack says, and shrugs when Mac and Cage both frown. “Seriously, none of you grew up with those things on the TV?”

“So you’re saying you were alive when this place was built, old man?” Mac asks. Jack glares at him. “Okay, I need to find a few more things, and then we’ll be ready to go. Jack, keep him talking.”

“What am I supposed to say?”

“You’ve never had a problem distracting me by running your mouth before.” Mac’s gotten eerily used to Jack fake-complaining that his plans won’t work, or telling him some long-winded story of a past mission that only tangentially relates to what they’re doing now, or just mixing metaphors and mangling cliches.  

Jack picks up the handset. “Commander, this is Jack Dalton, Delta Force. You just stay strong, soldier, we’re gonna get you out of there.”

“Thanks. I sure hope so.”

“Oh, I know so. You know why?” Jack looks at Mac and winks. “Cause you’ve got a very smart kid named MacGyver who just got that look in his eyes that I know means he knows exactly how to find you.” Jack grins. “Don’t ask me to explain it cause it’s probably all science mumbo-jumbo but it’s gonna work, trust me.”

Mac digs through the abandoned radio tower, scrounging for the pieces he needs to finish the directional antenna, with Jack’s voice as background noise. “And one time he disarmed a bomb using Christmas lights…”

“Christmas lights?”

“Yeah, I’m not really authorized to give you any other details of that particular operation, but let me just say, it was the coolest thing I ever saw.” Jack chuckles. “Wait, Commander, you don’t happen to have a phone on you, do you?”

“I do. Useless now though. Not getting any signal out here.” Wheeler sounds confused. “Is that important?”

Jack shrugs. “Well, just don’t get too attached to it. Mac’s got sticky fingers when it comes to those things. But whatever he does with them usually ends up saving our lives, so it’s almost worth it.”

“Okay, looks like we’re good to go.” Mac tilts the antenna one way, and the room fills with static, then the other, and Wheeler’s chuckle comes through clearly. “Here, help me get this on my back.”

They continue walking. “What can you tell us about this prisoner you were transporting?” Cage asks, preventing Jack from launching into the possibly still classified story of what happened in Amsterdam.

“We weren’t given a name. Just a picture and a location. She was one hell of a job.”

“Your prisoner was a woman?” Mac asks.

“Yeah. She dropped three of my men before the plane went down. She’s extremely dangerous.” Static buzzes, and Mac turns, trying to pinpoint the correct direction of travel. _Signals travel in a straight line, but we have to deal with walls and hallways._ They’re going to need to occasionally go out of their way a little to actually be able to make it to the source of the signal, but they still need to make sure they’re traveling in the right direction.

“We know. She tried to kill two of us in the plane wreckage,” Sam says. “We think she might have dragged you to where you are now.” Mac shakes his head suddenly. _In all the excitement about being able to track Wheeler, I forgot that we still don’t know where that blood trail came from._ It clearly wasn’t Wheeler, not if he’s trapped somewhere and remembers nothing up until then. _But would the prisoner have gone to the trouble of dragging him all the way up to the radio room, only to take him back to wherever she planned on hiding him?_ He doesn’t like not knowing what game someone else is playing. _Murdoc did the same thing._ He left a ridiculously elaborate trail, leading them right where he wanted them…

But they can’t afford to ignore this lead. Mac gestures to Jack, trying to get his attention without speaking and alarming Commander Wheeler. “Jack,” he whispers. “We might be walking into a trap. This prisoner could have led us to the radio tower to give us a way to track Wheeler, and then be waiting to ambush us.”

“How could anyone but you possibly have know something like this would work?” Jack asks. “I think it’s more likely one crew member got away from this femme fatale and tried to get a call out, but she caught them.” Mac nods. It’s possible. But it’s also best to be prepared.

“Can you tell us anything more about what happened?” Sam asks.

“Not really. I don’t know how she got free, but she did, and it was ugly. I’ve never seen anyone take out a whole team like that before.” Mac freezes. He has. Or at least the security footage of it. Cage demolished an entire Scorpion kill squad in the Phoenix siege. _She’s very likely right about this person being former black ops like her._

“Can you describe her?” Jack asks.

“Five nin, dark hair, ice water for blood,” Wheeler says. “If I had to guess, she’s former Special Forces or CIA. No one does what she did without years of training.”

“Signal’s getting stronger,” Mac says. “We’re getting close.” Jack and Cage draw their guns, and Mac steps back slightly.

Jack kicks in a door, and he and Cage charge in, but Mac can already tell there’s no one there. Not Wheeler, and not this mystery prisoner. He steps inside, and glances at where Jack and Cage are both training their flashlights.

“Two walkies taped together? That’s what we’ve been tracking this whole time?” Jack asks.

“Apparently. But that was Wheeler we were talking to,” Cage says. “Which means he is still somewhere, sending out a radio signal.”

“Maybe if we shut these suckers off, we can track the real one?” Jack asks. Mac nods. _He’s not wrong._ Wheeler must still have a radio and still be able to send a signal, even if someone was bouncing it through other radios first. Jack shakes his head, walking over to the walkies, and Mac freezes.

 _No one would go to the trouble of leading us on a wild goose chase without a plan…_ And then the floor gives out and Jack falls with a muffled yell and a clatter of metal as his arm catches the radio antenna.

“Jack!” Mac shouts, but there’s no answer and nothing but an empty hole.

* * *

SIX FEET UNDER

APPROXIMATELY

Jack groans. _I’m getting too old for this._ He’s not sure what hurts more, his shoulder, his butt, or his pride. _I really put my foot in this one. Literally._ And he has _no_ idea where his gun is. _At least I’ve got a backup one._

He can hear Mac and Cage yelling from up above, but he can’t answer just yet, because breathing is something he’s having to consciously think about. “Jack? Are you okay?” Mac sounds absolutely frantic.

“Yeah, I guess. I just fell, like, a thousand feet,” He gasps out.

“Give or take nine hundred and eighty,” Mac chuckles.

Jack stands up slowly, glancing around the room. There’s something in a corner, and he smacks his now very uncooperative flashlight, hoping to get a better look. The light clicks on, and there’s a _face…_

He’s not aware he screamed until he hears Mac and Cage yelling at him again. “Jack?”

He glances at the face again. It’s not a dead man, and it’s not a murderous prisoner either. “Nothing interesting down here, just some old punching dummies.” Jack shudders. “Looks like I found the combat training room.”

“Do you see any way you can get back up?” Mac asks.

“Uh…” Jack spins in a circle. “No ladder or nothin’. And there’s nothin’ down here I’d trust to support my weight, I ain’t one o’ you skinny kids.” He’s below the hole, now, and when he looks up he sees Mac and Cage glance at each other and shake their heads. He chuckles and then winces. “Damn, that floor was not forgiving. I think that’s solid concrete.”

“Wait, that’s it,” Mac says suddenly. “Cold, dark, stone or concrete floor? I think Wheeler’s in the basement.”

“Jack, you don’t have to figure out how to get up here. We’re coming down to you.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t really recommend this route,” Jack says. “Unless you like bruises.” He’s fairly confident Cage will be fine, but Mac nearly fell down the stairs to the Phoenix training room two days ago. _His luck, he’d drop down here and break a damn leg._

“Hey, is my antenna down there?” Mac asks.

Jack glances around, and then his foot hits something metallic. “Yeah, but it’s in like a thousand pieces, kid. I’m not sure you’re gonna be able to fix this. Might need another way to track Wheeler.”

“Um…” He can practically hear Mac thinking. “I...uh, I might have something, but I...kinda have to go back to the radio tower for supplies.”

“So we’re splittin’ up?” Jack sighs. “You know how I feel about that, man.”

“I’m gonna come back,” Mac says, voice shaky. _He’s got to hate this even worse than I do._ Jack’s just glad the kid isn’t the one who fell through the floor and has to be left behind while they try to get to him. _This freaky room is way too much like Murdoc’s._

“Cage, you go with him. I’ll be fine.” _I will. Down here. In the dark. With creepy training dummies._

“No, I think it’s better if she stays here,” Mac says shakily. “The trap with the walkies was supposed to lead us into this room. If that prisoner shows up to see if it worked, she’ll come here.”

Jack can’t deny that that’s true. But he doesn’t like the idea of Mac wandering around here in the dark. _He could run into that prisoner, or he could just have a panic attack if something here reminds him of what Murdoc did._ Jack has no idea what will give the kid flashbacks. One day, jingling car keys reminded him of the cuffs against the chair, and not surprisingly, Jack brushing a hand across his skin accidentally while changing the dressings on the gashes on his chest spooked him. _Everything’s worse because he was drugged._

He wants to believe Mac will be fine, the kid certainly doesn’t want anyone treating him like he’s fragile, but the truth is Mac’s already endured more trauma than most field agents will have in a lifetime. _Post traumatic stress comes with the territory, but he’s gonna be more susceptible than most._ It doesn’t make Mac any less of a good agent or a strong person, but it is something he’s going to deal with for the rest of his life.

“I don’t want you going alone, Mac.” He’d offer the kid a gun if he didn’t think that would just stress him out more. _My other one has to be around here somewhere._

“And I don’t want you alone down there.”

“Why, you think this mysterious badass chick is gonna whoop my ass?” Jack chuckles a little.

“I think she took out a whole elite CIA tac team.” Mac stands up. “I’ll be fine. I know my way back to the radio tower.” Jack pretends he doesn’t hear the kid whisper “I think” under his breath.

 _This is his choice, Jack. Respect that, the way you would if he was any other agent._ Vice President Wheeler didn’t order his son to stop running ops and doing his duty, just because things got more dangerous. He could have pulled strings to make sure his son got safer missions, but he respected Byron enough not to do that. Enough to let him choose to risk his own life. _At some point, we have to let go of our kids and let them do what they need to. No matter how hard it is._

He knows he’s been hovering lately, but he’s been justifying it by saying Mac hasn’t asked him to stop. He knows how scared the kid is of being abandoned, but maybe he’s been over-reacting. Just a little. _Can you really overreact to a psycho like Murdoc stalking and kidnapping him?_

“Okay, Mac. You go on. Watch out for ghosts. Or goats.” _Still haven’t figured out the reason for the name of this island._ “Or ghost goats.” That’s a bit of a tongue twister.

He hears the footsteps fading. Cage leans over the edge of the hole. “Hey, while you’re down there, why don’t you look around, see if you can find any sign of Wheeler or his team?”

“Or our mystery psycho?”

“Just use your roguish charm on her.”

“Oh very funny.” Jack smacks his flashlight again. “Hey Cage, wanna trade? This thing’s gonna die on me, and I don’t really wanna go poking around here if I can’t see. Might step on a rusty nail or stick my hand in something that bites it off.”

Sam laughs. “Okay, fine. Here.” She tosses her own flashlight down and Jack flings his up to her. “I’m not afraid of the dark.”

“Well, I guess we can scratch that off the list.” Jack moves forward through the room. “How about those car sale balloon things?”

“Nope.”

“Ants?” Jack asks, watching a trail of them crawling across a dilapidated box.

“No. Anything interesting down there?”

“Nope. Just a bunch of dirty old boxes. It looks like my mom’s attic.” He swears they have memorabilia up there from Texas War for Independence. _Daltons have been in Texas a long time._ When he was a kid he always hoped he’d find a cavalry sword hidden somewhere; he only found out much later that his mom _had_ found one and hidden it in the gun safe. He has it in his apartment now. “But there is a door.”

“What’s on the other side?”

“Probably the damn Twilight Zone.” Jack shakes his head. “But I’ll take a look.” He shoves the door open. There’s a rustle as a heap of papers dislodge and fall off a desk. “Uh, more walls. And lots of paperwork…” He stops. There’s a low, moaning whistling coming from somewhere. _Oh hell no._ He can’t deal with another creep who whistles before killing their victims.

“Jack?”

“There’s a noise.” He swings his light toward the source of the sound. “Oh, wait. It’s air. Coming out of a tear in some map on the wall.” He looks closer. “I think it’s covering up a secret passageway. An ultra-creepy secret passageway.” He pulls out his knife and slits a wider opening in the map, glancing inside. All he can see are a lot of cobwebs and an endless tunnel. _This looks like it was a command room. Maybe the whole basement level was a shelter bunker._ This tunnel might be an escape route, leading to the outside. Or it could be the _entrance_ to this space. _That would explain why I don’t see a real exit to this place._ Those boxes are probably full of supplies. _This was probably the command staff’s air raid bunker._

“What’s on the other side?”

“I think we oughta wait for Mac to come back.” Jack doesn’t like the idea of leaving Cage alone down here either.

“Jack, it’s fine. Mac’s probably gonna come back any minute. And finding a secret passage gives us an edge, this prisoner probably doesn’t know the base that well.”

Jack sighs and cracks his neck. “Okay, fine. I’ll check it out but then I’m coming right back, you hear?”

“Sounds good, Jack.” He can hear Cage shuffling around up there.

“Okay. Come on. Nothing to be scared of. Just a secret passageway. Like Indiana Jones.” He starts humming the “Raiders of the Lost Ark” theme as he ducks into the black hole.

* * *

SAN DIEGO

CIA AGENT BILL VAN HOLT’S HOUSE

Matty is a patient woman. Normally. She’s not so patient when her team is at risk. _It wasn’t so bad when we sent them in on a crash retrieval. But I haven’t heard from them in hours._ Last she knows, their plane was landing safely.

It still wasn’t severely concerning. Jill fiddled with the sat connection and said the problem was on the team’s end, probably the signal being blocked by the storm, which had circled around since the CIA team’s crash and was pelting the area with rain and strong winds. Still not a good enough reason for a major breach of protocol.

And then satellite scanning reported a massive heat plume, at the exact coordinates Riley had tracked the downed plane to.

Matty is more concerned than she would ever admit to anyone. _Something very bad happened down there._ She’s not sure what, and knowing Mac, he could have blown the plane up on purpose for some reason. But even if he did, that means something went very sideways.

Which is why she’s here. She needs to know what she just sent her team into. She knows what a breach of protocol this is, but there’s no way she’s leaving them out there blind, if she can help it. _If I have to fly down there myself, I will._

She hasn’t gone that far yet, only to San Diego. To the one CIA agent she knows she can get an answer from. Now, she’s waiting for him to come home. She expected him an hour ago. _Something must have come up._

A key scratches in the door lock, and the alarm chimes. She reset it after disabling it with one of Riley’s override codes. _Sometimes I’m concerned that she knows the factory overrides to nearly every security system in existence. Most of the time, it’s just a good asset._

Bill steps inside, sighing. Matty stands up.

“Hey Bill, rough day at the office?”

He jumps. “Matty Webber? What are you doing here?”

“I’m trying to rescue the son of the vice president. But for some reason no one at the company will tell me a damn thing about this ‘package’ he and his team were transporting. Which is where you come in.”

“Matilda, you know I can't tell you anything.” Bill shakes his head, but there’s a real concern in his eyes. _Yes, you should be afraid of me. I’m not part of the Company anymore. I have my own agency, and I have the power to make your life very uncomfortable._

“Did you hear the part about the vice president, Bill?”

“The mission is above his clearance and above yours.” She’s heard that too many times, in her career. And too many times when she hears it, people die. _I’m not going to let that happen today._

“I see. Well, if you're not scared of him, let's talk about what you are scared of. You will tell me everything that you know about this prisoner or my next stop is gonna be to the deputy director's house to discuss Mexico City. Do you remember Mexico City, Bill? Because I do.” She already knows he does, his face has gone white. _He dropped the ball, and we nearly lost three agents._ It’s only thanks to Matty that the mission was saved from being a complete disaster.

She reaches for a crystal decanter on the table next to her. “You talk. I'm gonna pour you a drink. You're gonna need it.”

* * *

GOAT ISLAND

NOT HAUNTED...PROBABLY

“Bozer, will you stop Blair Witching out there?” Riley mutters. The storm’s finally slacked off, and she and Bozer have been able to set up a tent away from the plane wreck. Mac seems to have been right about the metal interfering with the sat signals. Now that the last of the weather is clearing, she’s almost got enough connection for a call.

“We’re on a cursed island with a deadly escaped prisoner. I think I’m allowed to freak out.”

“Well, why don’t you freak out in a useful way and come pivot the antenna so I can get a clear signal?” He finally stops shining his flashlight out on the dripping jungle and reaches for the antenna pole.

“Left, right, up, down?”

“Um, just a slow circle...wait, hold it right there. I got signal.” She starts typing madly, hoping to actually connect to the War Room.

“Do I have to stand here and hold it for the whole call?” Bozer asks. “Cause I’ve kinda got a call of my own to answer. Mother Nature, you know.” Riley rolls her eyes.

“Okay, fine, go. Don’t get eaten by an octopus.”

“Don’t _scare_ me like that!” Bozer yelps. And then the call connects, and Riley sees an image of the War Room. But it’s not Matty standing in front of the screen.

“Patty?” She’s insisted on the team not calling her Oversight. _Oversight was a faceless entity. And we don’t exactly have the most stellar memories of Walsh in that role._ Riley knows she hasn’t forgiven him for sending Mac back into prison. She’s sure Patty hasn’t either.

“It’s about time you checked in, Agent Davis.” _Oh, something isn’t good, if this is formal._ “We saw an explosion on sat views. I assume Mac had something to do with it?”

“Actually no, not this time.” Riley chuckles. “The prisoner seems to have escaped custody, and we think they left us a little welcome surprise.”

“Thanks to Director Webber, your mystery prisoner now has a name and a face.” Patty says. “I’m sending you her files now.”

“Wait, _her?_ ”

“You of all people should know, Riley, the female is the more deadly of the species.” She can hear the smile in Patty’s voice.  Then her voice goes cold again. “The prisoner on that plane was Harper Hayes.”

“Wait...That CIA Special Activities Division agent who went rogue?” Riley had heard a lot about it when she first joined. She never had the clearance to find out what exactly the circumstances were, but she did know that Hayes had been a priority target. _I may have slightly illegally hacked some databases...what, they recruited a hacker with authority issues, what did they expect?_

“Yes. Apparently they finally got a lead on her in Senegal.” Patty says. “Have you seen any sign of Wheeler and his team?”

“Not so far. Jack, Mac and Cage headed for the old Navy base here following a blood trail. I lost comms with them once they got inside. We’re not sure if Hayes or one of the team pulled out the other team members, but the plane was empty when we found it.”

“If Hayes moved them, she certainly didn’t do it out of the goodness of her heart.” Patty says. “I’m afraid Mac, Jack, and Cage are walking straight into a trap.”

* * *

Sam glances around the room. Jack’s flashlight is flickering again, but Mac should be back soon with whatever he ran off to get. She hasn’t heard anything from Jack since he went down the secret tunnel. _How long has it been? Two minutes? Five?_ She didn’t think to check her watch when he went in. _I hope he didn’t get stuck down there. If Wheeler said parts of the room he was in had caved in, possibly the whole basement level is unstable._ She’s starting to get a little worried.

She hasn’t heard any rumbling or screams, but that doesn't mean something bad didn’t happen. She’ll give Jack a couple more minutes, and then she’s going down there after him.

She glances around the room. The walls are creaking in the storm wind, and it’s a disconcerting sound. Sam doesn’t really believe in the existence of ghosts, but that doesn’t mean the ghosts of her past aren’t very real. And the most terrifying demons her mind can conjure up don’t live in the world of a horror film. They wear human skin and have human souls. _And one of them is on this island with us._

She’s getting jittery. Not something that happens to her often. She paces the room, glancing around at the contents. There’s a clouded mirror on the wall that catches her attention, postcards and photographs are tucked into the corners. _People who might have waited for years, never to hear from their brother or son or father again._ She wonders what her sister thinks happened to her. _Now that all this Scorpion mess is over, I could call. If her number is even still the same. I could write. If she hasn’t moved away._ She’s been telling herself the same things for the past three months. Making the same lame excuses. _I work for a covert ops agency. I could find Linsey if I really wanted to._

But something is stopping her. _What would she think of me, after all this time? If she finds out that for years, I was alive but never spoke to her?_ She can’t tell her sister the truth. It’s too dangerous. _I lie to people for a living, but I can’t invent a lie that will be good enough to get my sister back._ She can’t imagine what she could say that won’t drive Linn away, that won’t make her think she was unimportant to Sam. _Everything I did, I did to protect her, but she can never know that._ She must have her own life now, maybe she even has a family. _And what good would I be for her? I have blood on my hands I can never wash off. I’m no good for anyone’s family except this little messed up one I have here._

These people never knew her as anything other than Samantha Cage, the agent with a checkered past; she has nothing to hide from them. But how could she ever go back home, when she isn’t the same person who left? _I buried the girl who was Deborah a thousand times over._ Every time she buried another body in the Outback sand.

She sets down the postcard and looks in the mirror again. _All I’m going to see will be one of those devils with a human face._ And she does. But not quite the way she was expecting.

There’s someone standing behind her, someone with dark hair and blood drying on her face and a murderous smile.

“Hello, Riddick.” Sam flinches. _I’m not her anymore._ And everyone who would know her by that name either thinks she’s dead...or was Scorpion. And then she puts a name to the face.

 _Harper Hayes._ Sam’s heard rumors that the former special ops merc replaced her in Scorpion after the failed hit, but she never found out for sure. She’s never worked personally with Hayes, but everyone who’s anyone in the criminal underworld knows who she is. _People called her the Terminator. And not just because she’s practically half metal._

Sam pulls her gun, but a roundhouse kick knocks it out of her hand and into a dark corner. She can’t tell if Hayes has a gun herself, if she did she probably would have used it, but she doesn’t wait to find out. She aims a kick of her own, but Hayes catches her leg in midair and slams her onto her back on the ground, wrapping her hands around Sam’s throat. She reaches up, clawing blindly at her attacker’s face, and Hayes dodges the strikes, loosening her grip on Sam’s throat. Sam starts to roll to her feet, but Hayes grabs her from behind, wrapping an arm around her neck.

“They should have killed you properly the first time,” Hayes growls. “I won’t make the same mistake.”

“Last time someone told me that, they ended up in a concrete box.” Cage rolls, breaking the grip around her neck, and dives for the gun. If she can get one good shot in...and then there’s a searing pain in her head and nothing else.

* * *

Mac hurries as fast as he can, without risking falling, through the abandoned base. _You’re fine. Jack and Sam are the ones you should be worried about. If this prisoner comes, they’ll come for them first._

Something creaks, and he shivers. _No such things as ghosts, MacGyver. You know that._ It’s the walls creaking in the storm winds. There’s a soft sound behind him, and he spins around, only to see that it’s water dripping through a ceiling crack and plopping onto the floor. _Not footsteps._

He needs to stop thinking about this, or he’s going to work himself up into imagining horrible demons around every corner. _I never liked the dark._ His imagination can come up with awful things. But lately, the worst nightmares haven’t been his imagination at all. _Murdoc isn’t here. He can’t touch you._ But the man proved he could find Mac whenever he wanted, watch him whenever he chose. Mac’s picked up his old habit of changing in the bathroom again, where he can lock the door behind him and know he’s safe. 

He hurries up the stairs to the radio tower, mentally listing the components he needs in his head, to try and stop himself from panicking. He can’t tell himself he’s safe, he can’t even tell himself Jack is going to protect him. Because Jack is down a hole in the basement.

He rifles through shelves in the room until he finds the basic things he needs. _I’m pretty sure this is going to work. Like about 56 percent, which is good, for me._ He starts tearing the old radio apart, he’s going to need a couple of the components. The sharp edge of the metal housing slices into his finger, and he winces. “Ow.” It’s already starting to bleed. _Blood running down my arms, my chest..._ He blinks. It’s just a tiny little cut, barely even noticeable. _Stop doing this to yourself!_ If he can’t control these flashbacks he’s never going to be able to get anything done. _Focus._

Suddenly, the desk phone begins ringing, a harsh chime that sounds like the default ringtone Mac’s phone had for a solid year. He jumps. _Who would be calling into the base?_ He wonders if it’s an intercom system, maybe Jack found a phone somewhere down there were he is. _Or maybe it’s the prisoner, calling to try and negotiate a deal because she has the rest of my team._ He can’t afford to not answer it.

For a minute, after he picks it up, there’s nothing but a buzzing, incoherent staticy sound. Then Riley’s voice comes through. “Mac, Jack, Cage, is anyone there?”

“Riley?”

“Oh thank God.” Riley’s voice is shaky, but Mac can’t tell if that’s from worry or because of the poor connection. “Are you guys alright?”

“Sort of. It’s a long story, but Jack fell through the floor and now we’re trying to find Commander Wheeler in the basement. He was sending out a radio distress call, last we knew he’s still very much alive.”

“Good.” Riley sighs. “I still can’t get comms online, but when I checked the plans for the base I realized we were almost directly on top of the original undersea phone lines. So I just kind of jacked into them and when I saw a light moving around up in the radio tower, I thought I’d give it a try. We have new information from Matty, and Mac, it’s not good.”

“Okay?” Mac tries not to let himself panic. Too much.

“Our mystery prisoner has a name now. Harper Hayes.” Mac doesn’t know who that is, but it sounds like Riley does. “She’s former CIA, went rogue about six years ago. Now she’s a mercenary for hire, and for the past three years, she’s been working almost exclusively for Scorpion. When we shut them down, she went back to contracting.”

“She’s pretty freaking scary, man,” Bozer says. “Fifty-eight confirmed kills in the past six years, probably a lot more than that.”

“Hayes is also known for patching herself up with black market surgeries,” Riley adds. “She has a cobalt chrome knee, a titanium shoulder, and a steel plate in her head. This chick is almost half metal.”

“And she’s well known for luring her targets in with elaborate traps,” Bozer concludes. “She knows every covert op tactic in the book, and she knows how to exploit them.”

“Which means making us track a fake Wheeler was definitely a trap.” Mac shivers, and it’s not from the chilly dampness. _I have to get back there._

“Wait, what?”

“I’ll tell you later. Riley, I have to go.” Mac hangs up and grabs the pile of things he needs. _I hope I have everything. I don’t have time to double-check._ Hayes might already have found Jack and Cage.

He’s not sure how much help he’ll be if he does get there in time. _I’m no Jack, or Sam, or Riley._ He wishes he had time, and the free hands, to build some kind of taser. But he doesn’t. _I might be overreacting. Maybe Hayes isn’t even aware we’re here yet._ He knows that’s a false hope, that plane explosion would definitely have alerted her to their presence.

He rushes down the stairs, through the base, and to the barracks where Jack fell. He forces himself to slow down as he gets closer to the room. _If there’s a fight I don’t want to announce that I’m coming, the only thing I really have going for me is the element of surprise._ And a can of corn might be a decent projectile weapon…

There’s no sound from inside the room. Mac pushes the door open slowly. “Jack? Cage?” He whispers softly. There’s no response, and when he shines his flashlight around the room, there’s no one there. “Jack? Cage?” He rushes over to the edge of the hole and peers in. It’s dark and silent. “Jack?” He knows his voice is getting louder, but he can’t help it. _I can’t be alone in here. I can’t._

He takes a deep, shaky breath. _You don’t have a choice._ This is like Murdoc all over again. He’s trapped, in a confusing network of hallways and rooms, with a murderous psycho possibly following him. _If Hayes finds me, she will most likely kill me._ And if he keeps yelling like this, she will find him.

He hurries back to where he saw a stairwell. _If she’s keeping Wheeler in the basement, she’s probably going to take Jack and Cage there._ He doesn’t let himself think she might kill them. _She has to know they weren’t the only ones. She’ll want to find out how many others are in the team._ Not that torture is a vastly better alternative to death, but at least he hopes it’s in Hayes’s best interests to keep them alive. For now.

He scrambles down the stairs, trying to find a balance between hurrying and being as quiet as possible. He wants to keep calling for Jack and Cage, but what if Hayes is the first one who finds him?

He pushes the basement level door open. The hinges are ancient and creak loudly, and he cringes. _I need to get away from here._ He’s hurrying down a hallway in the general direction he thinks he should go to get to the room where Jack was, when one of the shadows detaches from the wall and attacks him, pulling him back around a corner into an abandoned room.

Mac freezes, but the voice in his head this time isn’t his own, it’s Jack’s. _Fight back with everything you have. Most of the time they’ll be surprised you fought back at all._ Mac bites frantically at the hand over his mouth, kicking backward and trying to find a knee. He drops everything in his hands and tugs at the arm around his waist.

“Whoa, whoa, hoss, it’s just me!” Jack hisses. “Calm down, man!” He lets go, shaking his injured hand and wincing. “Sorry, kid, but I couldn’t tell it was you, in the dark.”

Mac takes a shaky breath, letting it out slowly. _Okay. I’m okay. We can do this._ He has Jack back. It’s going to be okay.

* * *

Jack feels incredibly guilty that he just grabbed Mac and terrified him. _But in my defense I was kind of spooked after crawling through that tunnel forever._ And he didn’t have his flashlight on; no sense in alerting anyone to his presence prematurely.

“Where’s Sam?” Mac asks.

“I thought she was up there waiting for you.” Jack feels that sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“She’s not there.” Mac is pacing now. “And apparently that prisoner the CIA team was transporting is someone called Harper Hayes.”

“Oh shit.” Jack hasn’t heard the _whole_ story, but he knows enough. Hayes was a CIA special operative, and then she took a whole team into Ceylon and turned on them. Half the team members were found dead by an exfil retrieval team. The rest vanished. As did the two-million-dollar piece of weapons tech they were sent in to recover. Hayes has been a wanted criminal ever since. “She’s on the loose in here, and now Cage is gone? I don’t like this, man.”

“Me either. But I think the best way to find them is to find Wheeler. Obviously Hayes wants him, and needs him alive. If we get him back, we have a good bargaining chip.”

“Ooh, I see where this is going. Promise her a trade, Wheeler for our girl.”

“It’s all I got.” Mac starts picking up the pile of items he dropped when Jack grabbed him. “Hope this all still works.”

“Sorry. Again.” Jack sighs. “Didn't mean to scare you.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” Mac hands him a tin can. “Here, can you open this?”

“Please tell me this plan of yours doesn’t involve you or me putting away a seventy-year old can of corn.”

“Nope. I just need the can, not the corn. So have at it if you want; I wouldn’t recommend it.” Jack shakes his head. That Siberian bunker he and Sarah hid out in is still far too fresh in his mind. _I’m not eating anything out of a can that’s more than five years old._

Mac continues working, muttering some of his random science jabber, and Jack watches. He saw Pops fix the tubes in the ancient TV set (the one with the rabbit ears) a couple of times, and it looks like Mac’s doing something similar to some sort of image screen he found. It’s cracked,  from where he dropped it, but still in one piece. _Back then, they really made stuff to last. Especially military stuff._ Jack’s house still has a refrigerator from the sixties, and he dreads the day it dies and Momma is finally forced to buy a new one.

“Okay,” Mac says finally, standing up from where he’s attached his entire contraption to a rolling office chair. “If Wheeler, Cage, or Hayes are down here, we should be able to see their heat signatures on this.” Jack glances at the screen, then moves around to stand in front of the scanner, waving his arms. A whitish figure on-screen does the same.

“Ooh man, did you just build a 1940s thermal camera?” _He probably wouldn’t get the joke if I said that was a real Buck Rogers move right there._ All of Jack’s best old-school references go over everyone’s heads. _Actually that’s technically one of Pops’s._

Mac nods. “It doesn’t have a super great range, but…”

“But you made a thermal camera out of a pile of seventy-year-old junk. Man, do you have _any_ idea how cool it is that your brain works like that?” Mac shrugs, and it’s hard to tell in the dim light from their flashlights, but he thinks the kid might actually be blushing at the compliment. _No one told him that enough when he was a kid. Someone has to make up for it now._

They move slowly down the hall. Mac pushes the chair, which _of course,_ like every grocery store cart, _had_ to be the one with a squeaky, wobbly wheel, while Jack scans the area with a flashlight in one hand and his gun in the other.

“Wait, Jack, I’ve got something,” Mac says suddenly. “Right through that door. Just one person.”

“Okay, hang on just a sec. Let me go first.” Jack pushes open the door, it isn’t locked. _That ain’t good._ Either this is Wheeler or Cage and Hayes left them in no condition to walk away, or it’s that she-devil herself.

It’s none of the above. Just a huge white domed chamber. “Whoa. Is that what I think it is?” Jack asks.

“If you’re thinking a 1940s dive decompression chamber, yeah.” Mac looks a little awed. “The Navy Raiders  probably used them after dive training, if something went wrong.” There’s a rhythmic thumping, and then Jack hears a muffled yell.

“Mac?” He steps up a little closer, and then jumps as Cage’s face appears in the small window. “Hey Mac, it’s Cage!”

“Guys, listen to me. The prisoner that got loose…”

“Is Harper Hayes, yeah, we know.” Mac says.

“She locked me in here, and the-the tank’s filling with water.” There’s a odd panicked stutter in the normally unshakeable woman’s voice. “Can you get me out?” Mac switches on his own flashlight and starts examining the door.

“Um, it looks like she filled the lock with some sort of plaster. No way to pick it. And I can’t cut through those hinges in time. With just my knife, that would take hours.”

“I’m guessing there’s about...five minutes before this tank fills up.” Sam sounds more composed now, oddly.

“How is that even possible? These things are supposed to be airtight!” Jack says.

Mac hops up on a tangle of pipes, getting a look at the top of the tank. “Hayes spot-welded a water pipe to the air intake, and I don’t see a shutoff valve for it.” Mac shudders. _Wow, she really is the evil version of him._ It makes Jack wonder what going head to head with James is going to be like when they finally track him down. _We’re insanely lucky Mac has chosen to use his powers for good...even if not always in strictly legal ways._  

WHen Mac climbs back down, Jack pulls him aside. “Mac, this is a standard Special Forces tactic. Wound a member of the enemy force…”

“And it slows the whole group down while they take care of the injured member.” Mac sighs. “So she’s a distraction.”

“Unfortunately. I’d bet anything Hayes is planning on grabbing Wheeler and our plane and flying outta here.” Jack glances back at Cage. “Mac, I really, really hate to do this, but…”

“Go. Stop Hayes. I’ll get Sam out.” Mac’s biting his lip, clearly he’s putting on a brave face for Jack but being left alone again down here in the dark has to be freaking terrifying. _But we don’t have a choice._ Jack knows Mac and Cage should be safe; Hayes is going to be focused on the next part of her plan.

“I’ll see you when this is over,” Jack says, giving Mac’s shoulder a squeeze before he runs off. _Damn, I didn’t want to do that. But I have to._

* * *

Sam watches as Jack runs off, her breath fogging on the chilly glass. _He has to. I would do the same thing in that position._

She can hear Mac up above the tank, pounding on the water pipe with some chunk of metal he found. She already knows that’s not going to do any good. _These pipes are thick. It’ll take too long._

The water’s up to her chest by the time Mac reappears in the window. “I’m sorry...I-I can’t break the pipe loose.”

“That’s okay. There has to be another way.” It feels odd, being the one saying that. Usually it’s Mac who insists they’re never out of options.

“I-I cant...there’s not enough time...I don’t know…” He’s panicking, shutting down. _Jack left, and he’s basically on his own in a cold, dark room, like the place Murdoc kept him. And on top of that he’s trying to figure out a way to keep me from dying._ She can see exactly why his normal ability to think through a problem is failing him. _He’s probably struggling just to avoid going into a full-blown panic attack._ She still remembers his reaction to the KIM game in the infirmary. _Those were just memories. Being surrounded by the same physical sensations is going to be a lot more traumatic._  

“Mac, listen to me.” She’s running out of air and time, but if she can’t get Mac to calm down, they have no chance at all. He looks up, eyes wide and terrified. “I’m afraid of drowning, Mac. That’s what I’m really afraid of.”

“I’m gonna get you out I swear, I’m going to figure something out…”

“Mac, listen. I didn’t tell you that to make this worse. I told you that because I know how scared you are right now, and you need to figure out how to control it.” She swallows. “When I was still part of Scorpion, I disobeyed one of their kill orders, and Tennant put out a hit on me. My car was run off the road into a river, I almost drowned. When the cops pulled me out, I got sent to a black site, where Roger Marton found me. He taught me how to deal with my fear, because what was going to get me killed wasn’t the situation, it was my reaction to it.” Mac nods. She can see him start thinking normally again, there’s that funny little tilt of his head that means he’s running through the possibilities. “He told me that if you can put the fear away, until later, you can find a way out of whatever is going wrong. And then if you want, you can be scared later.” It’s getting hard to talk, the water is rising fast. Now she’s reminding herself as much as she is Mac.

“I know what to do!” he says suddenly, and she won’t admit to how relieved she is. _I really did wonder if this might be it for me._ “I’ve been trying to figure out how to get you out, and I don’t have time to do that, but maybe I can get the _water_ out.”

He starts scrambling around, grabbing things off the floor. The water’s getting close to covering the whole window. Pretty soon she’s going to have to let go and go to the surface.

“I think I’ve got it.” Mac’s voice is warbled and distorted by the water in her ears. “This is a captive bolt gun. It should be enough force to shatter the glass.”

“Mac, if it doesn’t work, it’s not your fault. You did everything in your power.” She can’t help remembering Jack talking about the Ghost’s bomb. _Mac feels guilty for everyone he can’t save._

“This could also shatter your skull, so you might want to move back.” She nods, pulling herself away from the opening.

There’s a sudden smash, and a rush of water draining out. _He did it._ She moves back to the window, to see Mac just dropping the piece up pipe he was holding before running his hands through his hair in clear relief, then reaching up to help pull her out. She can just fit herself through the hole, but she’s shaky and not balancing well, and she and Mac both end up on the floor in a sodden heap. She rolls away from him as quickly as she can to avoid spooking him, and he scrambles to his feet, then reaches down to help her up. “Are you okay?”

She nods; she’s numb from the cold water and stiff from the tension from fear (and may or may not have a mild concussion she does _not_ plan on reporting and getting benched again for), but she’ll live. “Go help Jack. I’m good, I’ll be fine.” And knowing Harper Hayes, Jack may have bitten off more than he can chew.

* * *

Jack’s halfway to the compound fence when his comms crackle to life. “I have satellite connection, please respond.” It’s Riley.

“Riles?”

“Jack, you’ve got excellent timing. I have a heat signature in motion. Headed north at a dead sprint, straight for the radar dishes. About a hundred yards straight ahead of you.”

“I’m on it.” _What is Hayes doing headed that way? Our plane is in the opposite direction. Unless she was keeping Wheeler somewhere that wasn’t the main base._ Jack takes off running. The comms cut out again, and he can only hear snatches. “That...don’t know...lot of heat...engine...shut down for years...separating...two...out!” Jack’s not sure what that last yell meant. _Hayes didn’t double back for them, did she?_ And then he sees the running shape ahead of him. A few more strides and he’s tackling his target to the ground.

He rolls over, shining his flashlight into the prisoner’s face. “Wait, Commander Wheeler?”

“Look out! She’s using me to…” Jack’s already on his feet, grabbing for his gun, when a shot rings across the clearing and he stumbles backward, over the edge of the cliff, falling to the rocks and sea below.

Jack’s self-preservation instincts kick in, and he drops his gun, grabbing with both hands for the rockface. His wounded arm sears painfully in protest as he gets a grip on a small sapling, but he hangs there, panting, until he’s able to pull himself up and get his other hand gripped onto a small outcropping. _Now Riley’s warning makes sense. That heat signature was both Wheeler and Hayes, so close together we couldn’t tell it was two people. When she split off, Riley tried to warn me, but I couldn’t hear her._

He glances down at the raging water below him and immediately regrets it. _I have to get back up there. If Hayes thinks she finished me off, she’ll go after the rest of the team._

He ignores the screaming ache in his arm and drags himself up the cliff, scrambling for a grip with his feet, and then rolling himself over the edge. He can see Hayes dragging Wheeler away, it looks like she’s knocked him out.

“Hey, you missed!” Jack taunts. He hears the footsteps behind him, and a shot, but it goes wild. There’s a structure of some kind up ahead, Jack hopes it’ll be good cover. And that maybe the 13th Division left behind some weapons stockpiles. _Might be a long shot, sort of literally, but if there’s any ammo stored well enough to still be viable, or maybe a stash of grenades…_

He’s able to break the rusted lock off the door easily, and stumble inside. His eyes are more or less adjusted to the darkness, but this is pitch black. He can vaguely see the outline of some jeep hoods. _This was some kind of garage._ He stumbles along the row of vehicles, feeling along the seats and rear beds for any guns stashed in them. All he does is manage to put his hand in a massive mouse nest. _Damn. If it was Mac in here he’d have probably built a cannon out of an exhaust pipe by now._

The clouds are well and truly clearing off now. The moon comes out, shining through gaps where storms have torn chunks of sheet metal off the roof. And then the door bangs open and Jack sees Hayes’s silhouette framed in it.

“You make me hunt you down, I’m gonna kill you a lot slower!” She yells.

“What can I say, I like playing hard to get.” Jack ducks behind one of the jeeps. There’s another door at the far end of the garage, maybe he can work his way down there, get outside, and ambush her when she comes after him. He grabs a heavy wrench from an open toolbox, it’s rusty but it’ll do the trick. _Now, I just have to get to that door._

“You survived that fall. I’m impressed. So I’m gonna offer you a deal. You let me take your plane and fly away with Commander Wheeler, and I won’t paint the walls with your blood.”

“Counteroffer. Wheeler stays with me, you take the plane and fly away, I’ll see if I can get the CIA to cut you a deal.”

“No can do. I kinda need Wheeler if I’m gonna put him up for auction.” _Oh hell. She’s not getting the chance to kill me and decide to do the same thing with Mac as Wheeler._ Jack tightens his grip on the wrench. “I have a lot of, well, let’s call them friends, who would pay me a small fortune to get their hands on the vice president’s son.”

Jack chuckles, grabbing a second wrench. _Now or never._ “Don’t lie to me, we both know you ain’t got no friends.” He flings the smaller wrench in the opposite direction and runs for the door.

He twists the knob and jiggles it, but the door refuses to budge. The metal feels dented and warped, a storm probably drove a tree against it at some point and did a lot of damage. He can’t get it open, the lock is jammed beyond help.

“Oh, such a shame. It looks like our little game of hide and seek has come to an end.” He turns around slowly to see Harper leveling her gun at him.

 _I didn’t tell Mac what I wanted to._ Jack’s about to die, right here in this abandoned, cursed garage, and the only regret he has is not telling Mac how important the kid is to him. _I thought we had time. I should have known better._ The last thing Mac is going to remember of him is that he ran off and left Mac alone in that basement to try and save Cage. _I’m no better than anyone else who abandoned him when he needed them._ And that’s how Mac is going to remember him. _I’m sorry, kiddo. This one’s on me._

The gun flies out of Hayes’s hand. _What the hell?_ Bolts and wires and even a small wrench are skittering across the floor...and Hayes looks like someone is pulling her backward, eyes rolled back in her head, a hand clutching at one shoulder, grimacing in pain. And then Mac steps out from behind a jeep and swings whatever crazy contraption is in his hand, catching Hayes in the side of the head. She goes down like a rock.

“Jack!” Mac is practically shouting, and crying, as he stumbles over to Jack. “You’re still alive, oh God I didn’t even know if that was going to work…”

“Hey, hey, kiddo, you did good. I’m okay.” Jack reaches for Mac, pulling him into a hug, never mind his aching arm. He ruffles his fingers through Mac’s damp, messy hair. “What _was_ that?”

“An electromagnet. Hayes has a bunch of metal implants, so I thought a strong enough magnet might give her some trouble.”

Jack glances at the unconscious woman. “Dude, whatever goes on in that head of yours is way scarier than the Bermuda Triangle. And it’s awesome.” He pulls Mac a little closer, feeling the kid gradually stop shaking. “I’m alive, man, it’s gonna be okay.”

Mac pulls back, and then seems to notice Jack’s arm. “She shot you?”

“Just a graze. I’ll be fine.” Jack grins, but it’s a wobbly one. _I came so close to not getting another chance to hold that kid ever again._ He doesn’t want to let go.

“Are you crying?” Mac asks.

“Just didn’t want you to feel awkward about doing it by yourself.” Jack tugs him back into a hug. _I’m not letting go, and I’m not leaving him. Not this time._

* * *

The morning sun feels good. Sam plucks at the damp sleeve of her shirt and watches the commotion around the base. A second Phoenix team arrived onsite a few hours ago in response to Riley’s call, apparently she and Bozer found more survivors that Hayes had dragged away and left for dead.

Harper herself is being cuffed. “You really are as hard to kill as they say, Deborah,” she says. “I thought you’d still be floating in that tank.”

“My friends got me out. Lucky for me, not so lucky for you. Because now I owe you one.” She smiles.

“Oh, I look forward to you settling up.” Hayes smirks. _It’ll be a while._ She’s facing a very long time in the same kind of black site Sam’s familiar with. _If she sees the sun again in her lifetime, she’ll be lucky._

Sam watches the agents lead her away, and then glances around the base for Mac. He’s leaning on one of the old jeeps, staring at nothing. Sam walks over, scuffing her feet loudly to announce her presence, and he looks up when she leans on the hood beside him.

“Thank you. For saving my life.” Sam smiles.

“I’m sorry I panicked. If anyone had a right to be scared, it was you, and I almost let you down.” He glances at the ground.

“But you didn’t.” She turns so she can catch his eyes. “What happened down there is between us. I don’t see a need to tell the others anything other than that I made a mistake, let myself get caught, and you saved my life.”

“What you said, about the drowning…”

“It’s true. That’s the thing I’m most afraid of.” She smiles. “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t tell the others; the deal was they were supposed to guess it and I’m not letting them win that easily.”

Mac nods, but he’s not smiling. “Do you know what I’m most afraid of?” It sounds like he assumes she does. _He’s the only one I haven’t quite figured out yet._ And maybe that’s because he has all too many things that could top that list. _Prison, Murdoc, being abandoned again…_ Mac is practically a whole shoebox full of fears all by himself.

Mac glances at Jack, who’s still sitting on the tailgate of a rusted jeep, complaining while Riley field-dresses his arm. “What if the next time he almost gets himself killed, I can’t do anything in time?” He turns around, back to her. “I don’t want to watch him die, and know I could have saved him.”

She doesn’t really know what to say to that. _When we signed on for this life, we knew we might not make it out alive._ She was fully prepared to die, just a few hours ago, if that was what it took for them to finish the mission. _And yeah, I get that I’m a little messed up when it comes to facing mortality, but I think almost every field agent is._

“I can’t lose him, Sam. I’m afraid to get attached, because this job...one of us might not come home next time.” He bites his lip, staring at the ground.

“Jack knew that when he signed on for this. And you know it would never be your fault.” Sam says quietly. She knows Jack’s told Mac the same thing over and over again. She thought both of them had made their peace with that.

 _But something’s been different lately._ Mac has been more insecure, started second-guessing himself again the way he did when he was new to the team. And the only thing that’s been different, lately, is his relationship with Jack.

Mac takes a deep breath. His eyes meet hers, and they’re suspiciously shiny. “I know it shouldn’t bother me, but ever since he basically volunteered himself to be my dad…”

“You’re afraid that means you’re going to lose him eventually.” Sam gets it, she really does. _His formative experiences with parental figures were loss._ His mother died, even if he barely remembers that, his father left him, his grandfather died, and then Pena ‘died’ only to return years later as a criminal. _Ironically, both his truly paternal figures so far have gone bad._ She wonders if that’s part of what keeps him up at night as well. “He’s going to do everything in his power to make sure he’s always there for you, but this job does come with a price. We can try as hard as we can, but we have to know that someday, we could lose someone. Even if it’s not in the line of duty. No matter how much we want to protect the people we love, we have to be prepared to lose them too.”

“I know that…” Mac trails off.

“But there’s a huge difference between knowing and accepting. I know.” She watches Mac walk over to where Jack is just getting off the tailgate. Jack puts an arm around Mac’s shoulders and says something Sam can’t hear, and Mac’s face seems to literally light up as he smiles. Whether he wants to admit it or not, he really does need that fatherly presence in his life.

 _Family needs family._ And like she just told Mac, second chances are never guaranteed. But she has one now; thanks to what Mac just did to save her. She can’t afford to throw it away.

“Riley, can I borrow your phone?” Her own is a waterlogged mess, she’s already handed it over to Mac. _If anyone can salvage it, it’ll be him, but I’ll still probably never see it again._

She waits until the others have walked on a little bit ahead before she calls Matty. “Hey Matty, it’s Cage. Can you open a file on a Linsey Riddick?”

* * *

TRANSPORT PLANE

GOING HOME

Mac can’t sleep. He’s been awake for over twenty-four hours straight, he should be exhausted. And he is. But he can’t stop replaying every detail of the last mission in his head. _If Cage hadn’t been able to snap me out of that panic, if Riley hadn’t been able to tell me where Jack was..._ Two of their team members could have died last night. _And no matter what anyone says, it would be my fault._

True, he’s not the one who locked Sam in a dive tank and welded a water pipe to it, and he wasn’t the one holding a gun on Jack. But he might as well have been. _They count on me to be the one who makes sure people come home. To have the right plan, at the right time._ And over and over tonight, his own fears got in the way. _If I hadn’t been thinking so much about Murdoc I might have gotten back in time to stop Hayes from getting Cage, and then Jack wouldn’t have had to go alone and get shot…_ He can’t stop the rolling series of ‘if-then’s’ running through his head.

He jumps when Jack sits down next to him. He’s been up front talking to the pilot for the past few minutes, apparently they both were in Deltas at the same time and had an op together.

 _This is it. He’s going to tell me I shouldn’t be in the field any longer, that Murdoc messed me up too badly._ He won’t even argue. _I shouldn’t be there, not if I’m going to panic like that._

“Hey kiddo.” Jack’s voice is way too soft. _Don’t start crying already. It’s not worth crying over._

“Yeah?”

“Okay, this is probably gonna sound stupid and sappy, but I’m gonna say it right now, cause hell, this plane could fall outta the sky in the next minute, no one knows.” _This doesn’t sound like he’s mad..._ “You know, if I woulda died last night, I only woulda had one regret. All I could think about, when she had that gun on me, was that I was sorry I didn’t say what I needed to to you.” Mac shifts so he can look up at Jack. He has no idea what that even means. “I thought there would be plenty of time, for us to figure things out, to get comfortable talking about the kind of stuff that really matters. And then I almost died out there. I let myself forget that tomorrow is never, ever guaranteed.”

“What do you mean?”

“That I’m not gonna wait any longer to say what I should have said already. That you are the most important thing in my world and that is never going to change. That you never need to do anything to make me proud of you, to make me want you around. You have nothing to prove to me, and I never want you to feel like you’re going to make me hate you.” He sighs. “And that if I have to spend the rest of my life showing you what a father should be, that will be the thing I’m proudest to have done.”

Mac can’t say anything at all. _Even if James had ever felt that way about me, he never would have said it._ “I’m sorry I almost didn’t get there in time…”

“Hey. Stop that. I didn’t say any of this to give you a damn guilt trip. I told you because I wanted you to know that I care about you. So much. And that I didn’t want to let another minute go by without making sure you knew that.”

* * *

LOS ANGELES

HALLOWEEN

When Matty shows up at the door, with the extra candy Jack insisted she bring (she thinks it might have something to do with the fact that he was sneaking handfuls from the bowl while everyone was setting up) she doesn’t even flinch when a one-armed axe-wielding tin man opens the door.

“Hey Matty.”

“Good, you’re obeying the doctor’s orders.” She’s surprised Jack is actually resting his arm as directed. But then again, he’s been extra careful since they got back from the Triangle. _He hasn’t reacted that way to a near death experience since...since Bangladesh._ It was one of the first ops after he and Riley really gelled as a team, and she refused to leave his side even though he was in a hospital in a coma for a week. _When he found out how scared he was, he promised her he wasn’t gonna do that to her again._ Of course, that lasted until the next mission that required putting their lives on the line, but still.

He’s realizing how much of a parental figure he’s become to Mac. Matty thinks the two of them may have literally been the last ones to see the writing on the wall. Cage has known for a long time, clearly Riley knew (she went through the exact kind of jealousy phase Matty remembers having when her baby brother was born) and Matty remembers Thornton calling her, as soon as she was selected as the interim director, and insisting that she under no circumstances split up Mac and Jack.

Clearly, someone didn’t get the memo that it was her and not a group of trick-or-treating middle schoolers, because Bozer leaps out from under a table, dressed as a feral version of the cowardly lion, lunging at her and growling. He stops immediately when he realizes his mistake. “Sorry, Director.”

She rolls her eyes.

A Zombified Dorothy steps out of the living room. “Matty, I thought you were coming in costume?” Mickey, a collar around his neck with a large tag hanging from it that reads “Toto”, follows her. _Guess he’s kind of intended to be the werewolf version of Toto._ She’ll admit that in the eerie lighting, Mickey does have a wolfish look. But his friendly eyes and happily lolling tongue definitely spoil the effect.  

“I am. As your worst nightmare.” She shrugs, grinning. “Wicked Witch of the West was already taken.” Patty nods, stepping out from behind a closet door holding a broom, her face painted green and a fake wart on her nose. _Bozer really outdid himself with these costumes._ Cage and Mac appear from down a hall, as a scarecrow monster and a vampire wizard, respectively.

“Jill is out in the garage, passing out candy,” Mac says. “I’ll take these out to her.”

“No need.” A macabre Glinda, her wand replaced with a butcher knife and her pink dress spattered with bloodstains, scoops the candy bags out of Matty’s arms. “I don’t trust the rest of this crew with anything sugary.”

“If you run out there, you might still catch Penny,” Mac says. “She and her boyfriend came through as Lois Lane and Clark Kent.”

“Guys, kids incoming.” Cage turns from where she’s posted herself as lookout at a window. “Places!”

Matty heads for the garage amid the mad scramble of the others rushing back to their hiding spots. _I’m just glad they’re all here to do this._ She can’t imagine it any other way.


	6. Jet Engine+Pickup Truck

### 206-Jet Engine+Pickup Truck

FINLAND

MOST PEOPLE DO NOT COME HERE FOR THE ARMS DEALS

Mac stumbles on a step, and barely has time to get his feet back under him before Jack is hauling him bodily up the stairway. He blames the large, furry boots for this particular mishap. “Matty!” Jack’s yelling into comms. “Blending in with the parade was a bust! We’ve been made!”

“Copy that. I’ll inform exfil,” Matty says, much too calmly, Mac thinks. They’re being chased through a house by heavily armed thugs, while wearing some sort of extremely vibrant-and uncomfortable-traditional Finnish clothing.  

“Yeah, well, unless they’ve got a sleigh and some flying reindeer I don’t think they’re gonna do us much good!” Jack yells back; they’re at the top of the stairs and Jack is flinging open the door to what looks like an attic storage space. He pushes Mac through and then pulls the door shut behind them. “Because the only way out looks like up!”

“Remind me again why we’re in here?” Mac asks.

“It was the first unlocked door! I didn’t think they’d see us go inside!”

“I don’t really think they could _miss_ us.” There’s a hard thud against the door. “Uh, Jack…”

“I’m on it.” Jack shoves a heavy dresser against the door, flinching as there’s an even louder bang. “Hey Mac, what if these guys decide we’re too much trouble to keep alive for interrogation and just start shooting? I really don’t wanna die looking like a fancy elf, man.”

“Hopefully we’ll be gone by then. Just try and hold them back, buy me a little time, there’s gotta be some family heirloom up here I can use to get us out.” Mac glances around the attic.

“Hold them back? Mac, I’ve been outta ammo for a good ten minutes.” He grins suddenly. “See if you can find a jar of old lutefisk, I think that might make a decent weapon.”

“I think I can come up with something better than pickled fish,” Mac says. He pulls open one of the boxes, digging through the contents. “Photo albums...more photo albums...Grandma’s wedding dress...old handwritten letters…” He shifts a box and his hand hits something soft. “That’s a dead _rat_ !” Mac gasps, stumbling backward. “Oh _gross_.” He wipes his hand repeatedly on his jacket, trying to get rid of the creepy feeling.

He pushes aside another few boxes, and then spots a dusty disk burner tucked up with some other ancient computer pieces. “Hey, I think I got something.”

“How’s that gonna help us? Email Riley our last words?” Jack asks. Mac can hear the door hinges creaking; another good hit and the whole thing is going to jar loose.

“DVD burners are good for more than making “Salt-N-Pepa” mixtapes. All I got to do is take out the laser diode, remove the resistor then fit it into the flashlight housing.” Mac really, really hopes this actually does what it’s supposed to.

He turns it on and smacks the flashlight housing, making sure he’s not actually pointing the thing at himself or Jack. A thin beam appears in the dust-filled air.

“Holy Mary Mother of God, it actually happened!” Jack shouts.

“What?” They’re about to _die,_ so Mac has no idea what Jack sounds so excited about. Or why he’s suddenly grinning.

“You made a _lightsaber!_ ”

“Technically it’s a laser torch…”

“Dude, don’t ruin it for me! Come on, young Padawan, let’s Obi-Wan Kenobi our way outta this!” Jack yells. There’s another bang, and the dresser in front of the door shifts slightly. Mac holds his torch up to the edge of the roof. The light flickers and dies.

“No, no, no.” He smacks the side of the flashlight again, and the beam flickers back to life, and then there’s a sizzling sound as it slices through the boards and roof tiles. “I think it’s actually working!”

“That’s great, young Jedi, but you think you could use the Force and speed things up a bit? Because I think our stormtrooper buddies are getting a little impatient.”

“I’m going as fast as I can!” Mac insists. He’s almost got it. “Okay, I need you to come help me knock this section loose.” Jack jumps up, grabbing the torn-apart DVD burner as he does. Mac barely has time to realize what’s happening before Jack winds up and flings the whole thing at the weakened section, knocking it loose and sending the chunk of roof and the burner flying down toward the street. _Please don’t hit anyone._

They scramble out onto the roof. _Oh this was a terrible idea._ Not only are they on a sharply pitched tiled roof, but these fur boots have _no_ traction. Mac slips, sliding down toward the edge, and makes the mistake of looking down to see the DVD burner smashed on the pavement.

“Whoa, hey, I got you.” Jack grabs his arm. Mac kicks his feet out of the boots, the tiles are cold on his bare feet but at least he can get a grip. He follows Jack up onto the ridge of the roof just as he hears the door break open in the attic.

“Did you bring that lightsaber with you?” Jack asks.

“No, I was a little busy worrying about not falling to my death.” Mac shakes his head slightly, he’s trying to keep his balance on the narrow tops of the roofs they’re currently running across. “I can make another one though.”

“Hey, do you think you could get Matty to make that a standard part of our tac gear?” Mac just laughs.

* * *

LOS ANGELES

THE PENAS’S HOUSE

“But when I turned around, there were three guys there waiting for me.” Mac leans over the small table, lowering his voice and watching Annabelle’s eyes go wide. “I thought I was a goner. And then your dad came out of nowhere and he fought all three of them single-handedly. And after he knocked all of them out, he just looked at me and said ‘never assume anything is easy, Angus’.” Annabelle laughs.

“Why is it that every time I say my name, you laugh?”

“Because it’s funny,” Annabelle says, still smiling. “You’re named after a horse.”

“What?”

“In _Brave_! Merida’s horse!” Annabelle jumps up, pulling back an imaginary bowstring. “I was her for Halloween, remember?” Mac does. She and her mom came over to the house, Annabelle with her hair all curled into ringlets and wearing a green dress. “I really wanted to be her so I could carry a bow and arrow around, but Mom said no.”

“Your mom’s smart.” Mac grins. “I almost shot my best friend with one I made myself when we were kids.” _Bozer’s version of Robin Hood probably never would have made it anyway._

“You made one yourself?” _Oh no. Why do I always say things like this around kids?_ Just this week he accidentally admitted to Valerie that he might have built something like a lightsaber recently. _That was a mistake._

“Hey, listen, I’ll tell you about that some other time. Okay?” He hedges, hoping Maria doesn’t come out the door just then.

“Why did your parents name you Angus?” Annabelle asks. _Of course that’s the part of the conversation she goes back to._

“You know, I don’t know, actually.” He shrugs.

“You should ask.”

“I-um, I can’t. My mom passed away, and my dad left, a long time ago.” He’s been coming over here more recently, ever since finding out his own father is a world-class criminal. _Annabelle and I have more in common than I thought_ . Except her father didn’t choose to become a monster. It was an accident, the results of the explosion everyone assumed killed him. _And in a way, it did. The real Alfred Pena died that day, and the Ghost took his place._

“Oh.” Annabelle looks up at him with big, sad eyes. “Does that mean you’re an orphan?” Mac just shrugs.

“I guess, maybe. But I’ve got a great group of friends who are a lot like family.” Just then the door opens and Maria steps out onto the porch.

“Mac, there’s a Matty on the phone for you. She says you need to turn your cell back on? She sounds kind of upset.”

“A-and that would be my mom.” Mac grins. “She’s kinda like your mom that way. She likes to know where I am and make sure I’m not getting into trouble.” Annabelle giggles. He pulls out his phone and turns it on, and there’s a string of increasingly frustrated messages from Matty, culminating with one he’s pretty sure he doesn’t want Annabelle to see. “I have to go to work, but I’ll come see you again soon, okay?” He just wishes he could tell Maria _something._ There’s been no sign of the Ghost in over a year. _They need closure._ He glances down at the watch on his wrist. _So do I._

* * *

THE WAR ROOM

FOR ONCE, JACK IS NOT THE LATE ONE

Jack grins when Mac hurries through the door. “Sorry I’m late.” He’s actually been driving himself to and from the Penas’ house now, and Jack’s proud of him for that. _Couple months ago he was scared to drive by himself._ Little by little, Mac is figuring out how to get back to a normal life.

“Glad you could join us, blondie,” Matty says, but Jack can tell she’s only fake angry. She knows how much going to see Pena’s kid means to Mac. _He’s been going more ever since we got back from lookin’ for his dad._ He wonders if it’s because there’s an odd similarity between the hunt for the Ghost and their search for James.

She switches gears, turning back to the screen, where there’s a massive column of fire burning. “This is live footage from Nigeria. Eighteen hours ago, an oil wellhead exploded, igniting a geyser of fire over six hundred feet tall. The oil company estimates it’s burning through a million gallons a day.”

“Why don’t they just shut it off?” Bozer asks.

“Because they can’t. That wellhead that blew, that _was_ the off switch,” Jack says. “Now this towering column of fire is directly connected to a massive underground reservoir of oil.”

“Uh, Jack?” Bozer asks. “How do you know all this?”

“My grandpappy used to build drilling rigs outside of Amarillo. I practically grew up on one of these.” Jack smiles. He has a lot of fond memories of visiting Momma’s family in Amarillo and spending his days out on the rigs. “Which is why I’ve gotta ask. Normally, highly-trained crews and specialized machinery are brought in to fight a blaze like this. What’s going on here?”

Matty sighs and pulls up a new series of images. “That explosion was no accident. A rebel army called The Damisa are trying to topple the Nigerian government, and they've already seized three military installations along the Nigerian border. Then, they used stolen C4 to blow up the wellhead. And now they're using stolen RPGs to take out any plane, train or automobile coming into the country carrying firefighting equipment.”

Cage looks up at the photographs and video of the fire. “Best way to destabilize a country is to bankrupt it. And the quickest way to bankrupt an oil-rich country is to do that. These guys are gonna do anything to keep that fire burning.” Jack’s never sure if he should be impressed by her strategic knowledge or worried that she’s speaking from personal experience. Sam still scares him just a little, but she’s in good company there. He has a healthy respect for Matty and Patty as well. And even Mac. _Sure, the kid’s a damn puppy dog, but he does make things explode for a living._  

“And I assume we’re gonna do everything we can to put it out,” Riley says.

“You’re right. With the region about to collapse into a civil war, D.C. wants to avoid direct involvement.”

“So it’s up to us,” Mac says. Jack can see the flickering of the fire on the screen reflected in the kid’s eyes.

“Is this footage live?” Cage asks.

“Yes. Our techs estimate that the smoke from the fire is going to completely block satellite overwatch in roughly twelve hours.” Matty says. “Unfortunately, the nearest site where we can safely land you is at least a six hour walk from the wellhead.”

“So by the time we get there, no eye in the sky,” Jack says. _Going in blind. Not my favorite way to run an op._

“We could send up a drone, below the smoke ceiling,” Riley suggests. “A lightweight one could be packed in.” Matty nods.

“That’s still a six hour hike through a country full of people who kind of want us dead,” Bozer says.

“We’re monitoring the Damisa’s movements, and as of now, your area is clear of rebel forces,” Matty says. “Unfortunately, once we lose satellites, we can’t be sure of anything.”

“These guys may want to keep that fire burning, but they have to know that eventually, it’s going to blow wide open, and the immediate area is going to be filling up with toxic gases and smoke.” Jack says. “They’re probably keeping their distance.”

“Oh, that makes me feel a lot better. Now I don’t have to worry about being shot by rebels, I have to worry about toxic air.” Bozer rolls his eyes. “Let’s just go, before anyone says anything scarier.”

Jack nods. “The faster we put that fire out, the better it’s gonna be for everyone.”

* * *

NIGERIA

THERE ARE MORE BUGS THAN THE MOVIES MAKE IT LOOK LIKE

Bozer swats at something landing on his neck. “Man, I guess this is why we got all those travel vaccines at once.”

“Covert ops sucks like that,” Riley agrees. “You never really know where you’re going to get sent on a team like this, so you have to cover all the bases.” She’s always been a little envious of the dedicated continent teams, like their region-stationed exfil and long-term operatives. _Only needing the vaccines for one region would be nice._ But she also thinks she might get bored, after a while. She’s never been much for settling down.

She glances up at the trees, there’s a light spatter of ash falling now, and everyone’s shoulders are turning black. “We’re moving under the smoke canopy now. That airstrip we saw on satellite is about ten more miles ahead.”

“I saw two planes on the tarmac. We can use one to drop the bomb, provided we get up fast enough that we don’t get shot out of the sky,” Mac says.

“Okay, about that, explain to me again how dropping a bomb into a fire is going to make it less fiery?” Riley’s always heard the expression ‘you can’t fight fire with fire’. _Granted, people mostly told me that when they were trying to make me shut up and take whatever anyone threw at me, so I didn’t always listen._

“It’s actually pretty simple. The blast shockwave will expand so quickly it pushes all the burning oil and oxygen away from the fuel source. Like a kid blowing out birthday candles.”

“One good puff, and it’s out,” Jack says. Riley nods. “That’s right out of Red Adair’s playbook.”

“The dancer?” Bozer asks.

“No, not Fred Astaire. Red Adair. Didn’t you ever see the movie _Hellfighters_ ? With John Wayne?” Riley smirks; Jack watched his _entire_ John Wayne collection with her once when she was laid up with a busted leg.

“No,” Bozer says.

“Come on, I thought you were a movie buff, Bozer. That’s a classic.”

“Only to some people,” Bozer says.

“Okay, I'll choose not to be insulted by that, Boze. Red Adair was a native Texan who made a name for himself fighting some of the world's most dangerous wellhead fires. And in 1961, he battled a blaze called "The Devil's Cigarette Lighter”. It burned at 3,000 degrees, caused gale force winds. It could shoot out a stream of gas powerful enough to cut a man right in half.”

“Oh, that’s not terrifying at all,” Bozer mutters.

“Well, my mom’s old man met Red once, and he said it was like meeting the president. To my grandpa, there was no greater hero than Red Adair.” Jack puts one arm around Riley’s shoulder and one around Mac’s.

“Whoa, whoa, careful!” Bozer yelps. “Mac’s got a bomb on his back.”

“Relax. It’s just cyanuric triazide. Low impact agitation won’t set it off,” Mac chuckles. “Jack hugs aren’t that jarring.” _Not his hugs for you at least._ Riley gets ones so hard she thinks ribs might snap, but that’s different. Jack is careful with Mac, like he’s fragile. In a way, he is.

She can’t help but wonder what it would be like if things were different. If someone had given Mac the same offer they gave her, if he’d been spared those two years in prison. _He’d still have his share of issues. But he wouldn’t flinch at every touch from anyone he doesn’t know. He wouldn’t cringe away from people watching him._

Somehow, she thinks she expected getting those charges dropped to somehow magically erase everything that happened because of them. But taking them off his record didn’t do a thing to take them out of his past. Nothing is going to erase that.

 _Murdoc didn’t help._ She’s pretty sure that kidnapping was a massive setback. Mac’s been jumpier again, not quite as bad as after Bishop, but it’s still noticeable. Riley still doesn’t like to think about that op, or her part in it. _I know I didn’t have a choice, Patty put me in charge because she had to, but I still feel responsible._ She knows that changed her too.

“I think your grandfather would have been proud of you, Jack,” Bozer says.

“Do my ears deceive me, or was that actually a compliment?” Jack asks.

“Well, look at you now. On your way to do the same thing as one of his heroes.” Bozer grins. “It’s nice you got to know him. Both sets of my grandparents died before I really got to remember anything about them.” He shrugs. “Mom’s family was from Louisiana, and Dad’s...well, his side didn’t have much to do with us after he died. Guess us kids reminded them too much of him.”

“That’s rough, man. I can’t imagine not having my grandparents around. Pops’s family lived right next door my whole life, and we made sure we got to see Momma’s once every few months.” Riley bites her lip, she can sympathize with Bozer. She’s never met any of her grandparents either. Sometimes she envies Jack his stable family. _Out of all of us, he’s the only one who really had a normal life._ Matty has some tragedy in her past, something she won’t talk about but that Riley knows is the reason she has never dated the entire time Riley’s known her. Sam has a sister she hasn’t seen in over a decade. And Mac...well, Riley thinks Elwood looks like a saint compared to what they now know about James MacGyver.

“Guys, I hate to break up this cute little heart to heart, but I think we’re being followed.” Sam’s voice snaps everyone into instant high alert.

Riley glances around. She can’t see anything in the thick trees and swirls of descending smoke, but that doesn’t mean no one is there. And then there’s a soft snap from behind them, and she whirls around to see a group of figures in ghillie suits emerging from the trees, carrying guns.

“Do you think these are the rebels Matty was talking about?” Bozer whispers.

“Well, I can’t see any leopard claw tattoos, but judging by the fact that they’re all holding guns on us, yeah, I think this is them.” The men are shouting at them now, and Riley doesn’t speak the language but she’s pretty sure they’re being told to get on their knees.

“Uh Mac, when you said that bomb needed high impact to detonate…” Jack says.

“Yeah. A bullet would do the trick.” Riley watches Mac shudder as they raise their hands and the men move in closer. _Well, it wouldn’t be a mission if it didn’t go wrong before we even got started._

* * *

Jack watches Mac shudder as the rebels yank each member of the team to their feet, frisk them roughly for weapons, and then tie their hands behind them with a heavy, rough cord. Mac is clearly trying not to panic, but he’s visibly shaking, and Jack can hear the kid breathing harshly when he’s pushed into line behind Jack.

Jack wants to fight this whole group singlehandedly for so much as laying a hand on his kid, but his hands are tied. Literally. One of the rebels grabs the end of the rope holding them all together and yanks on it, and Jack has no choice but to follow, stumbling along behind the man.

They’re moving toward the wellhead, but not directly, like they were when they were alone. Instead, they’re moving on an angle. Jack’s surprised the Damisa are set up so close to the blaze. _Smart enough to blow a wellhead, but apparently not to know it’s eventually going to explode even worse._

They come out of the woods into a dull sunlight, the sky filled with sooty clouds and more ash falling. There’s a bitter tang of burning oil in the air. The heat and the smell of oil smoke feels like Texas, and Jack can feel a twinge of nostalgia creeping over him.

There’s a stumbling sound and a grunt that Jack unfortunately recognizes as Riley’s from the back of the line. He knows what it sounds like when someone hits her. “Bozer, watch where you’re going,” Riley complains, clearly out of breath. She must have tripped and gotten punished for it.

“Me? If you kept up, I wouldn’t be getting yanked back.”

“Guys, now’s not the time,” Cage says.

“I beg to differ, Cage,” Bozer says. “I like being alive, and if we keep pissing these guys off by getting tangled up or falling over, they’re going to get tired of dragging us around and start feeding us some permanent sleeping pills.”  

Mac speaks up from behind Jack. “If they were gonna kill us, they would have done it by now, not dragged us through the woods. I think they’re taking us to their camp.” Jack shudders. _That can’t mean anything good. They’re either gonna torture us, or sell us._ He can’t imagine this rebel group takes kindly to white outsiders.

He’s pretty sure he knows which one of those two options is running through Mac’s head. The kid’s voice is shaky and Jack can feet the slight tremors in the rope connecting him to Mac. He wants to reassure the kid that it’s going to be okay, but the truth is, he’s utterly helpless to stop whatever happens to them now. If he fights back, he’s just going to get himself shot and make Mac even more distressed than he is now.

The men continue marching them along, toward a collection of small, tin-roofed huts.

“I kind of thought a rebel base would have a little more...military feel,” Bozer says. “This looks like a village.”

“That’s because it is,” Riley says. “The rebels probably drove out or killed the villagers, or just took over when the town evacuated because of the fire. For a guerilla organization like the Damisa, it’s a lot easier to take over existing structures than it is to build their own base of operations.”

 _They’re way too close to the wellhead._ Jack wonders if maybe they’re all going to die in the explosion before the rebels have time to sell them. _I’m not sure, but that might actually be better._

They’re dragged into the center of town, and this time when the leader shouts at them, it’s in English. “On your knees! Kneel!”

They do, slowly. Jack doesn’t dare risk pissing the man off in case he takes his anger out on any one of them. “You think they’re gonna shoot us _now?_ ” Bozer asks.

And then the rebels begin removing their masks, and Jack does a double take. More than half this group are women, and he sees several teenagers as well.

“Since when did this rebel group start recruiting women and children?” Riley asks.

“These aren’t rebels,” Cage says. “They’re villagers. This town is their home.” Jack glances around at the people who have now removed the last of their disguises. He can’t see a claw tattoo on any of them, although two of the boys have scarred patches of skin on their arms where one would have been. _They were probably captured and turned into child soldiers. When they escaped, they literally cut the Damisa’s marks off their skin._ Jack can’t imagine what that kind of life would be like. _I chose to go to war, and it still destroyed a piece of me._

“Who are you? Why are you trespassing on our land?” The man who was leading them, who seems to be the village chief, asks.

“My name’s Jack Dalton, and my team and I were sent by the U.S. government to help put out that fire.”

The man scoffs. “The Damisa said they came to help. And now things are worse.” The villagers begin to clamor. “What proof do you have that you are not working for them?”

“Do you think the Damisa take kindly to white people joining their club?” Jack asks. “They wouldn’t trust us any more than you do.”

“He is right,” A woman says, stepping up from the crowd. “The Damisa are too proud to work with from outsiders like them. You have heard what they say about running out all the colonizers from the land.”

The leader frowns at her. “Nasha, this is not your concern.”

“It is all of our concern. If they are telling the truth, they can save the village.”

“We can try,” Mac says. “But you can’t stay here. The air is becoming toxic, and the fires are spreading faster by the minute. This place isn’t safe.”

“No. We will not leave. If we leave, we will lose everything,” The leader insists.

“No, if you stay, you’ll lose everything. Including your lives,” Jack retorts.

“Better to die protecting that which our families have built over generations than to run like cowards,” The leader insists.

“I understand wanting to have a connection to your past,” Mac says, his voice is still shaky but he sounds determined. “But if you won’t leave, at least let us do what we came to, and try to put out that fire. Because if no one does, this village will burn.”

Nasha puts a hand on the leader’s arm. “Solomon. I know you are worried. But if there is a chance that they can do what they promise, we should believe them. We have no choice.”

Solomon sighs. “Very well. Untie them and allow them to leave.”

Nasha and a few of the other women hurry over to them, and Jack feels the ropes slip off his hands. He rubs his chafed wrists gratefully and turns to where Nasha is just finishing untying Mac. “Thank you.” He’s glad at least one person here is willing to trust them. _We might be in as much danger with the villagers as with the rebels, if they decide outsiders aren’t welcome._

“I know what will happen if the fire continues to burn,” she says. “And Solomon is right. If we leave, we will lose everything. This place is all we have. It is all our children have.” As if to prove her point, a group of laughing children rush out from behind a laundry line. “If we have to leave, uproot them, they will be in more danger than ever.”

Jack nods. If these people end up in some kind of refugee camp, with their village destroyed and unliveable, they’ll be prime targets for traffickers. “Trust me. We’re going to do everything we can to save your town. And I’ve never seen Mac fail yet.”

* * *

While Jack calls Matty to alert her to the newest developments, and Riley and Bozer start setting up for launching the drone, Mac gets to work on a project of his own. _If I can prove we’re here to help, maybe Solomon will agree to let Bozer and Riley stay and set up overwatch in the village._ Nasha gets him an old radio and a plastic bucket and watches as he works. He can tell she’s curious about what he’s doing, but there’s something else as well, a kind of concern he’s not entirely sure he understands.

She had her eyes on him the whole time she was trying to reason with Solomon, and he wonders if it was so obvious that he was afraid. He knows his hands were shaking slightly when she untied him. _Would she have noticed all of that?_ _And would she figure out what it meant if she did?_

“What is that?” Nasha asks.

“It’s a sonic fire extinguisher. Press play, and the speaker emits a fifty hertz frequency. It’ll create pressure waves that snuff out the fire.” He smiles. It’s always nice when people are actually interested in what he does, and clearly Nasha finds it fascinating.

“That is incredible.” She looks it over. “Will you explain this to the children? I know they will be curious.” She calls out something that sounds like it’s in her own language, and at least a dozen children appear from all over the camp, running toward them.

“Of course.” Mac says, watching as the children cluster around Nasha. She starts forming them into an orderly line.

“This is our lesson of the day, so listen to what the American has to say.” She smiles. They all nod solemnly, and although a few of the younger ones are fidgeting, they’re all silent.

“I’m making something to put the fires out,” Mac says, holding up the bucket and radio.

“With music?” one of the older girls asks.

“Actually, that’s almost exactly what it does.” Mac grins. _I really like teaching kids how something works, how to use the world around them to do things they don’t even know are possible._ He loves spending time with Annabelle or talking to Valerie. _If things had worked out differently I might have become a teacher._ He knows Mr. Ericson would have approved. _He’s the reason I would have wanted to do it._

He points to the speaker mounted in the bottom of the bucket. “Sound makes waves, and those waves push the air. Like blowing on a small flame to put it out.” He glances behind them, there’s a new smudge of smoke coming from somewhere near the edge of the village. “Why don’t I show you?”

He leads the wide-eyed little troop to where a fire is flickering in a smear of oil that’s bubbled up to the surface because of the heat and pressure on the reservoir from the wellhead fire. _Any time a flaming bit of ash falls on one of these, it goes up in flames_. “Okay, watch this.” He holds up the bucket, presses play, and the low hum from the speaker is accompanied by a whooshing sound and the flames flicker out. There’s a collective gasp and the children press in closer to see exactly how it worked.

Mac lets them hold out their hands to feel the wave vibrations, and some of the younger ones squeal. One pretends it’s strong enough to knock him over. _A budding Jack sense of humor, right there._ Mac never fails to be amazed that kids everywhere are just kids. _Unfortunately, too many of them have to grow up too soon._

“Who here is the oldest?” Mac asks. Two of the smaller kids push a boy who’s clearly going through his awkward lanky phase to the front of the crowd.

“Chidi turned twelve this year,” Nasha says. “He’s very bright.”

“Okay, well, I’m going to put you in charge of this, okay?” Mac says. When Chidi slips the strap on the radio over his shoulder, the other kids all crowd around him. A few of the older ones are sighing, looking slightly jealous. But Mac has a good idea of what to do about that. “We’re going to make our own little fire-fighting team, okay?” He bends down, putting his hands on his knees. “I want all the rest of you to spread out all over the village, okay? And keep your eyes open for fires.”

“If you see one, whistle, like I do to call you to school,” Nasha says, clearly she’s caught onto the idea. “Chidi, when you hear a whistle, go to wherever it came from and help them put out the fire.” The children nod solemnly, then hurry off. Mac stands up, watching them running.

“So you’re the teacher.”

“Yes.” Nasha smiles proudly. “I grew up here, and when I left to go to school in Lagos, I made a promise that I would come back.” Her eyes turn misty for a moment. “I could never bear to think of leaving this place forever. This village is my family.” Mac can understand that. “I came home and started the school last year.”

“It looks like you’re doing well. You have some very bright students there.”

“I know. I am fortunate.” She glances after the group running off with the extinguisher. “Since the fighting began coming closer, it has been hard to keep their attention. They are afraid, and I understand it. But the only chance to end wars like this is to educate our children and help them learn that this is not the way.” Nasha sighs. “It is the only way to stop many of our problems.” Her eyes are smoldering like one of the oil fires. “These lands are plagued by militants who take our children for soldiers, and by traffickers who take them as slaves.” Mac flinches. “The ones who come home again are the lucky ones, and they are never the same. They are scarred, inside and out.” She shakes her head. “I want these children to know they are worth more than to be sent out to fight other men’s battles, or to be used for the pleasure of someone cruel.”

Mac bites his lip so hard that he tastes blood. “That’s a really noble thing to do. You’re right, they deserve so much better than a life like that.” He thinks if he says anything more he’ll give himself away.

“It is who I am.” Nasha says simply. She watches the last of the groups of children disappearing. “But as hard as I try, I feel like I am failing. All they have known is war. How am I supposed to teach them what peace should be like?”

Mac knows what she means. _Carlos used to say the same thing about life in his neighborhood. The children grew up seeing gang violence and crime as normal parts of their lives. It was always an uphill battle to convince them that anything better was possible for them._ “Everything you do makes a difference. If you save just one child, it’s worth everything you’ve done.”

“Thank you.”

Jack jogs over, Cage beside him, holding the backpack with the bomb. “Alright, hoss, you ready to hit the road?” Mac nods. He glances back once to see Nasha watching them walk away. _We can’t let these people down._

* * *

“CIA intelligence said all towns in the immediate vicinity had been evacuated.” Matty’s voice is clipped, cold.

“Well, I guess this would be the first time the CIA’s ever been wrong,” Jack snarks back.

Matty sighs. “Okay, I'll make a call. In the meantime, you need to steal a plane and get back on schedule. Every second that this wellhead burns brings the region closer to war.” Jack doesn’t need to be told that twice. And the air quality is getting worse too. He and the others have already handed their masks over to some of the residents who seem to have the worst struggles with breathing. But it’s not going to get any better.

“Copy that. Mac and Cage and I are about to giddy up to the landing strip while Riley and Bozer launch their drone thing from town.”

“I'm sorry. Did you just say "from town"?” _Oh, I knew I shoulda left that part off._

“Yeah, they're staying behind to watch our six and help these people put out fires until Mac gets that wellhead under control.” _And if that drone spots the Damisa on the move, they’re gonna need to clear the village out fast._

“A piece of flaming debris could light that town up at any moment, Jack. Riley and Bozer setting up overwatch so close to the fire puts them and the mission in unnecessary danger.” He knows that. But this wouldn’t be close to the first time he and Riley have put their own lives on the line to try and protect someone else’s. That’s just the job.

“We can't just abandon these people. I'm on the ground here.”

“Yeah, I know, which is why you're making an emotional decision.”

“No, which is why I have a better read on the situation than you do. If Riley and Bozer leave, dozens could die.”

“And if they stay, this mission goes sideways, it could be thousands more. Look, Jack, I know that it's hard to see people suffer, okay? I get it. But it's my job to see the bigger picture. If anyone asks for help evacuating, you give it to them. But Riley and Bozer are to set up somewhere safe, at least five miles from the wellhead fire.” They go through the same fight every time. Matty argues, it looks good for her on paper, and when they were in the CIA it was a necessity. Agents on the ground are expected to occasionally deviate, and it might end in a reprimand (or possibly death in which case another black mark on the dossier is the least of that agent’s concerns), for someone in an authoritative position like Matty, it could mean far more serious consequences. But this time, it doesn’t feel like argument for the sake of saying she tried. It sounds like she’s actually afraid for their safety and trying to protect them. _She won’t admit it, but Murdoc and Hayes shook her up too._ In the past few weeks they’ve almost lost Mac, Jack, and Cage on ops. Matty’s trying not to risk anyone again.

“Yeah, yeah, okay, fine. I got it.” Jack hangs up and turns to the others. “Riley, Bozer, you can't stay here. It's Matty's orders.” He knows that if Matty went behind his back and let Mac risk his life, Jack would be beyond furious. _I can’t in good conscience at least not try to get them to follow orders._ Even though he already knows Riley will shoot him down.

Surprisingly, it’s Bozer with the first shot fired. “We came here to help people, didn't we? Well, these people need help.”

“It's not my decision, man. Matty said bounce. So you two better listen.”

Riley looks up from her rig with a devious smile. The view from the Phoenix satellites is completely obscured by the smoke now.” She turns the screen to show Jack, and Cage who’s just walked up.

“Okay, who taught you going behind Matty’s back was a good idea?” Jack asks.

“Uh, _you._ ” Riley grins.

“Fine. But if it gets worse, you promise me, you pack up and get outta here, okay?” Riley nods, her face serious again.

“I got Mac’s bomb back,” Sam says, holding up the backpack. “It took a little convincing but I finally managed to get them to agree that it was safest with the people who knew how to use it. I also may have left off the part about it being safe for low-impact.” Jack sighs.

“I’m surrounded by liars.”

“We’re not _liars,_ we just...tweak the truth a little.” Sam winks at Riley. “Wouldn’t be spies if that wasn’t part of the skill set.” Jack can’t disagree. _Diane still thinks I sell tile for a living and that I broke up with her because I’m scared of commitment._ Okay, that last part might be kind of sort of halfway true. But really, he thought there might be something there. _Too late now._ He blew it, and he’s not about to make the same mistake twice. _If I keep my distance, we’re all better off in the long run._ Now that Diane’s in LA, he doesn’t want to force Riley to choose sides between him and her mom if things go sideways again.

Riley keeps pestering him to come over for dinner, as a friend. But he’s not just a friend. The history with Diane can’t just be forgotten. _Neither of us can go back to being ‘just friends’ after that._ He’s pretty sure she never wants to see him again.

“Ready to pick Mac up and go?” Sam asks. Jack nods. Last he saw the kid, he was with that girl who stuck up for them, building some fire extinguisher thingy. When he crosses the square, he can see them talking. Mac looks a little skittish, and Jack’s not entirely sure why. But by the time he gets to them, he wonders if he was making it up, because the kid seems pretty normal again, saying something about saving one child being worth it. _Sounds like him._ Mac doesn’t believe in lost causes, unless it’s himself.

 _I’d like to strap this bomb to James and toss him in that wellhead fire._ Jack doesn’t often allow himself to really hate the people they go up against. Hate is a vicious thing, it can eat him up and take over. But he does hate the man who somehow shattered Mac so badly that the only person the kid thinks is beyond help is himself. _He made Mac feel like his own happiness was never important, like the only thing that mattered was whether Mac could be helpful to everyone else._

Granted, that’s awfully similar to the Texas ranch mentality, where there was never any time for self-pity or room for self-indulgence. _But there, you knew everyone else was gonna look out for you._ Everyone put the rest of the family ahead of themselves, which meant someone was always going to be there to make sure Jack was okay. _Mac learned to just give and give and never expect to be taken care of in return._

“Alright, hoss, you ready to hit the road?” Jack asks. Mac nods, and they start off toward where the airstrip is supposed to be.

“So, who’s our friend?” Jack asks, once they’re out of hearing range of the village.

“You mean Nasha? She’s the teacher.”

“She seemed pretty eager to take our side. Is it just me, or does it seem like challenging Solomon was a big risk for her?”

“She’s trying to save her kids.” Mac sighs. “Unless we put that fire out, they’re either going to die from the toxic gases or the flames, or end up homeless in a refugee camp. Either way, it’s not good for them.”

Jack nods. “Sounds like she cares about them a lot.” Mac nods.

“You looked a little tense back there, before.” Jack wonders if maybe Nasha was hitting on Mac. He doesn’t really do well with that kind of thing.

“It’s fine. I’m just...if we can’t do this, then they lose everything.” He sighs. “I know it sounds easy enough to tell them to evacuate, that it seems like staying alive is the most important thing, but...I know better than most people that sometimes it doesn’t feel worth it to try and save yourself, when there’s no good future in sight.” Jack flinches. He wonders how many times Mac came close to giving in, to letting the cartels kill him rather than trying to fight back or get into solitary to escape. _He thought he was doing life. That that was all he had to look forward to._ Every time Mac says something like this, Jack feels a part of himself die a little more. Mac says it so casually. _If he had given up before we got him out..._ that doesn’t bear thinking about.

“Listen. We’re gonna do whatever we can, and if we have to evacuate them, Phoenix is gonna do whatever they can to make sure they can come home once it’s over. Alright?” He’s trying to be realistic here, and he hopes that’s going to be good enough.

“And if all goes well, that fire’s going to be out within the hour,” Cage says. “Riley, have you got the drone up?”

“Just about to launch. Had to recalibrate to deal with the heat drafts,” Riley says. “Okay, Bozer, take her up.”

Jack hears something about not being able to hit electric lines around here, and then Bozer starts counting off altitude. “Okay, she’s hovering just under the smoke ceiling. Switching to auto-hover.”

“Ri, what’s it look like down there?” Jack asks.

“Calibrating the image now.” There are a few more clicking sounds, then a pause. “Okay, guys? Good news is, the drone is operational. Bad news is, there’ve been a few developments since we lost sat imagery.”

Mac and Cage have gone on a bit ahead, and Jack sees them stop. “Let me guess, the landing strip we were gonna steal a plane from is overrun with rebels?”

“Yeah. Real ones this time.”

Jack joins Mac and Cage where they’re crouching behind a low rise of dirt at the edge of teh airfield. “They’re sabotaging anything that can fly. Strategic move to stop locals from fighting the fires,” Cage says.

“And here I thought they were offering to escort us to our plane,” Jack says. Cage rolls her eyes at him.

“So what’s the plan now?” Riley asks. “We still need a plane.”

“All right, looks like we’re gonna have to do this the Jack Dalton way.” Jack grins.

“I just said they’re sabotaging the planes?” Sam reminds him.

“I know, Cage, but I bet Mac can whip up a handy-dandy replacement for whatever they’re rippin’ outta there, and I could fly a shoebox if it had wings.” He has a special fondness for the old “Fly-By-Night” plane he left parked somewhere in the Andes; _she was a hunk of junk but man was she a ride_. “I got the six on the left if you got the two on the right.” Suddenly, there’s a couple of massive explosions, and the fronts of the planes catch fire. “Oohh, that’s a problem even the Jack Dalton way can’t fix, right there.”

“Now what are we gonna do?” Bozer asks. “It’s getting a little hard to breathe up here. Not enough to run yet!” He quickly reassures, sounding slightly in pain. Riley probably kicked his shin for saying that.

Mac collapses, sitting down with his back against the heap of dirt and grass. “Well, without a plane to drop the explosives, the only way to approach the fire is on the ground.”

Cage gives him a strange stare. “I thought you said that wasn't an option.”

“It isn't, because even if we could survive getting close enough to the flames to drop the explosives in, which we can't, the cyanuric triazide would've already exploded.” Mac picks up a piece of grass, fidgeting with it. _Guess since he doesn’t have a paperclip on him, that’s his way of gettin’ himself to think._ He leans his head back and glances over the pile, and then a slow smile spreads across his face.

“You got something?” Jack asks.

“You know what, I think I do. Cage, I need your shoelaces.” Sam just sighs.

* * *

Mac pulls the explosives out of his backpack, setting them up near the base of a tree. There’s a stream nearby, and he fills the backpack with water, grateful it’s one of the Phoenix-issue waterproof kind. _Otherwise, this whole plan would be kind of a bust._

“Okay, Jack, when the rebels scatter, I need you to go to the runway and grab as many seatbelts as you can from those destroyed planes.” He ties the backpack to one of Sam’s shoelaces, and the other lace to a rock, one on each side of a stick.

“Seatbelts? And the leopard people are gonna suddenly scatter because?”

“Because they are going to be running towards what they _think_ is an enemy firing at them.” He arranges the whole setup so it’s balanced. For now. “I need your weapon.”

Jack looks less than enthusiastic. “Am I going to get it back?”

“Uh, maybe?” Mac shuffles his feet, staring at the ground.

“At least look me in the eye if you're gonna lie to me.” Mac glances up, flinching. _How mad is he?_ But when he sees Jack’s face, the man’s smiling, just a little. Mac relaxes. “Yeah, okay. That's better.” Jack hands over the gun, ruffling Mac’s hair slightly when he does, despite Mac’s protests. “You’re always breakin’ my damn phone, knew it was only a matter of time before you asked for a gun.”

“Sam, while Jack is collecting seatbelts, you and I are gonna go hotwire that truck.”

“The one with the highly flammable barrels of jet fuel in the back?” Sam asks. He nods. “Super.” Mac can tell she’s not being sarcastic. She actually does enjoy the kind of crazy this life is. She’s a little different from everyone else, that way. Jack and Riley do their jobs more out of dutiful loyalty and a desire to make the world a better place. It seems like Sam is here more than half for the fun of it. _If she didn’t have a job like this, I think she’d be one of those adrenaline junkies who goes skydiving or freeclimbing just for the risks._

Mac would be lying if he said there wasn’t some of that in him too. _It’s just_ fun _to be able to take things and make them do what you want. Or to make something blow up._ Jack says he has way too much fun with that, and he can’t really argue, because even after everything, even after all the trouble it’s gotten him into, it’s still _fun._

“That means we have to be long gone before the rebels catch on. ‘Cause one stray bullet is game over.” He’s dealt with worse odds though.

“So how long till your little doohickey works?” Jack asks.

“Uh, I don’t actually know. I mean, it’s a time delay fuse made out of a rock, shoelaces, a backpack full of water, and…”

“My gun. Yeah, I know.”

“The point is, not exactly an atomic clock.” Mac shrugs.

“That’s what I thought.” Jack chuckles. And then there’s a massive explosion behind them, and the Damisa are yelling and jumping into their trucks. Jack and Mac and Cage jump up and start running for the hangar as soon as the trucks disappear.  

Jack jumps into the first of the ruined planes, and Mac and Cage dash for the truck. Surprisingly, Cage is the one who stumbles on the way, catching her foot on a tussock of grass. Mac stops, turning back to be sure she’s alright.

“Sam, hurry up!” Those rebels will find out soon that the bomb was a distraction, and they’re going to wonder why.

“I’d be faster if _someone_ hadn’t taken my shoelaces!” Cage grumbles. “Next time, use your own.” Mac chuckles, hopping into the car and yanking wires out from under the dash. Fortunately, these older cars are so much easier to hotwire than new vehicles.

“What are we stealing a truck for?” Cage asks. “There were two in the village.”

“Oh, we’re not here for the truck.” Mac hops out. “Back it in under that engine on the hoist.”

Cage nods, clearly she’s still a little lost but she’s not going to ask. Jack, on the other hand, gives Mac a curious frown as he runs up with a handful of seatbelts. “Ah, come on, Mac, you know I trust that you can build anything, but an _airplane?_ ”

Mac starts running the chain down, lowering the engine into the truck bed. He’s used to running equipment like this, it’s almost muscle memory to work on the chain hoist. “Oh, I’m not building a plane.”

“Then why are we stealing a jet engine?” There’s a rumble of engines from outside.

“How ‘bout we save that explanation for later?” Cage yells.

“Good call!” Jack jumps into the driver’s seat and Mac slides in between him and Cage. The rebels are coming back, and they’re out of time. _This had better work._

* * *

Sam grabs for the side of the door as Jack whips the truck out of the garage. She feels like they’re actually going to roll over. “Jack!”

Clearly Jack is just as concerned as she is. “Hey Mac, as much as I love commandeering a jet engine, it’s making it damn near impossible to drive this thing!”

“And I’m a little hazy on how it’s going to help us fight a fire,” Cage says, bracing herself as they take another turn a little faster than advisable.

“All right, you guys remember how I said that the explosions were gonna create a shockwave that was gonna blow out the flames? Or the way I made the sonic fire extinguisher? So, that L-39 Albatros in the back there, it pumps out about 50,000 pounds of thrust, enough to blow out the wellhead fires.”

“Nice!” _This sounds too good to be true, so there has to be a catch._ Sam’s been in the business too long to assume otherwise. And it’s Mac, so nothing ever works exactly the way it’s supposed to. Not that means that it won’t work. Just that it’s going to be a little more...complicated.

She’s almost sorry she’s right. “If, you know…” Mac mumbles, not really looking at either of them.

“If?” Sam asks. _Do I even really want to know?_ She glances backward; there’s a swirl of dust behind them that she’s sure is the rebel vehicles.

“Um...If we can get close enough.”

“How close?” Jack yells, clinging to the steering wheel with a death grip.

“15, maybe 20 feet.”

Jack takes his eyes off the road to stare at Mac. “What?! Were you not listening earlier when I told you what Grandpappy Merritt said about wellhead blowouts? Meant hurricane force winds, dude. Lethal gas spouts and the air burns at a balmy 3,000 degrees. Did you forget that?”

“I did _not_ forget that, Jack.”

“We’re not gonna have to worry about any of that if those rebels kill us first!” Sam yells. There’s a truck full of them coming up fast. “Four, incoming!” And then there’s a spray of gunfire and she ducks as the rear window blows out in shards of glass. Bullets and glass fly, and Sam feels blood run down her cheek.

“We’re never gonna outrun them with that engine rolling around in the back!” Jack glances back at the bed of the truck. “I take one turn too fast and we’re gonna slide right off the damn road!”

“What do you think the seatbelts are for?” Mac asks.

“Well, I don’t know? A straightjacket? A bullwhip? A flail?” Jack asks.

“It was rhetorical!” Mac shouts. “I have to go tie down that engine.” He slides out the back window.

“Just hurry!” Jack shouts. Sam hears metal clatter as he ratchets the seatbelts into tiedown straps. Bullets ping off the side of the truck, and she sees Jack flinch. Mac has no cover in the back of the truck, and even if he manages to avoid everyone shooting at them, if he’s on the wrong side of the engine when they go around the next turn, he could get pinned, possibly break bones. “Come on, come on, let’s go!” Jack shouts, and Sam knows he’s not angry, he’s scared. He wants Mac back in the cab _now._ Another blast of gunfire hits them, and Sam flinches when she hears Mac cry out in pain.

“Mac!” Jack shouts.

“I’m okay.” His voice is strained, clearly he’s lying. Jack’s white-knuckle grip looks like it’s going to rip the steering wheel right out of the dash.

“I’m gonna go help him. You keep driving.” Cage pulls herself out the back window, ducking when shots strafe over them. _It’s a miracle they haven’t hit the fuel tank_. “Mac, how bad is it?”

He’s crouched down in the back of the truck, on the opposite side from where the rebels are driving up, one hand pressed to his thigh. “Just grazed my leg.” Sam thinks that blood looks like more than a graze, but she says nothing. She wants to make sure he gets it wrapped, but they don’t exactly have time to worry about minor injuries when either the engine or the rebels are going to kill them first.

“I got this. Engine’s all you, okay?” The truck is pulling up next to them, and Cage leans over, catching the first guy before he can even make it onto their truck, knocking the knife out of his hand, and flinging him back into the bed of the pickup. Two more Damisa soldiers jump on behind her, and Sam turns to deal with one of them, deflecting a knife aimed for her face before kicking him hard and sending him out the back of the vehicle to land on the road. The second guy gets in a lucky punch while she’s distracted, knocking her back toward the cab. She backs off; as long as his attention is on her, he’s not going to hurt Mac, who’s still fumbling with the tiedowns.

Another truck comes up, and two more rebels leap on, on Mac’s side. Sam spares them a glance, and that’s when the guy after her lands another hit that sends her sprawling onto the top of the cab. She flips over it and lands across the windscreen, grabbing a bar along the front.

“I kind of need to be able to see!” Jack shouts, she’s right in front of him.

“So sorry to inconvenience you!” There a yell from the back, and then Mac shouts.

“Jack! Hard left! Now!” Jack does, and Sam nearly flies off the front of the truck. The two soldiers in the back aren’t as lucky. She hears screams and then two thuds. _Mac hadn’t finished tying down the engine, and when Jack turned it slid and knocked them over the side._ She tries to pull herself up, but the man after her is on the roof now and she narrowly avoids getting her left hand crushed under his boot.

And then something knocks him sideways, and a hand is reaching down toward hers. Mac gives her a tug that gets enough momentum for her to scramble back over the windshield. He’s panting, holding a handful of the seatbelts.

“Thanks.” Sam gives him a small grin, wiping hair out of the blood dripping from her lip.

Jack yells back to them. “Hey guys, the road’s about to swerve again, so unless you want this to be a real short trip, you better hurry up and tie that baby down!”

“Almost done!” Mac yells. He clips one end of the belt to a ring in the side of the truck bed and the other to the network of straps already over the engine. “Okay!”

Jack swings them around the turn, and the engine slides wildly but they stay on the road. The truck behind them doesn’t, careening off into the trees.

“Hooo yeah! Fast and Furious, Nigerian Drift!” Jack yells. Sam laughs, leaning back against the cab of the truck. _We made it._

* * *

Bozer tugs his bandanna a little higher over his nose as he hurries up to Riley. “Any word from Mac?”

“Yeah, they lost the rebels chasing them and they’re about half an hour from the wellhead.” There’s ash in her hair and her shoulders are black from falling soot.

“I hope we can last that long. There’s fires starting faster than the kids can put them out.” He’s been helping some of the others, with pails of water, but it still doesn’t seem like they’re doing enough. _We’re running out of time._

“I can use the drone’s thermal cameras to scan and alert us when new ones pop up,” Riley says. Bozer nods. A couple of kids run past, one of them wearing one of the breathing filters they brought with them. _They need it more than we do._

Bozer coughs as a plume of smoke drifts down. It smells like smog in LA, probably because of the burnt oil fumes. That smell was a constant, when he was growing up. It’s still odd not to notice it so much up in the Hills. The kids running and laughing, the smoky air, the heat...it all feels like every LA summer when he was those children’s age.

Metal clangs, and he glances up to see Solomon tossing pail after pail of water into the low branches of a tree. He walks up to stand beside the man. “We should dig a firebreak. A low ditch around the tree that flames can’t cross.” It won’t do any good if the wellhead goes and the air itself turns into fire, but it might keep these oil slicks from igniting it.

Solomon nods. “I will find shovels.” He returns in a few minutes with two of them, and he and Bozer both start to dig. The ground is hard, dry with drought and heat, and Bozer’s sweating even harder within minutes.

“Thank you for your help,” Solomon says.

“No problem. When you grow up around MacGyver, you learn a thing or two about fire safety,” Bozer chuckles. His hands are starting to blister from the shovel handle. _I haven’t done this since we used to help with the neighborhood community garden._ He smiles, remembering flinging over-ripe tomatoes so they wouldn’t rot the rest, and accidentally hitting Mac with one. Or the time Jerry picked a much-too-small watermelon because he got too excited about the fact that any of them were actually growing.

 _We may not have had a lot, but we loved what we had._ He can see why these people don’t want to leave their home. He only left because after they lost Mom, they couldn’t keep the house, and Mac’s grandpa’s home was paid off. Mac had signed it over to Bozer the second he was old enough to legally inherit it the way Harry had wanted. _He thought something might happen to him, out there being a hero, and he wanted me and Mom and Deja to have it._

He leans on the shovel, taking a short break. “Avocados, huh?”

“ _Piha oyinbo._ Alligator pear,” Solomon says with a smile. He reaches up and picks one of the fruits, holding it out to Bozer. “You see, we call it that because of the rough green skin. And when you cut it open…” He pulls out a knife and expertly slices the avocado in half, then holds the two slices up in front of his eyes, growling.

“It looks like an alligator’s eyes.”  Bozer chuckles.

Solomon smiles wistfully. “You know, my grandfather planted this tree, long before anybody knew there was oil underground. Four generations of my family have eaten from it. I used to cut the fruit in half when, uh, when it was ripe, and then chase my daughter around all over here.” His smile grows sadder. Bozer recognizes that look. It’s the grief of a parent who’s lost a child.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly.

“My Nina will be twelve, now.” Solomon says softly. “Probably tell her father she is too old for silly games.” _Jerry would be twenty-two. Graduating college, if he went. Or maybe signing a record deal. He always wanted to get into music._ It’s hard not to think of what it would be like to have that person who’s gone back in your life. _Where would any of us be if he’d stayed home that night? If he’d even been running late?_

“I lost my little brother Jerry, seven years ago.” Bozer sighs.

“My Nina was taken by the soldiers, along with many others. It has been almost two years, now. The children...they are made to do horrible things. Fight their wars.” Solomon’s eyes are shiny with tears. “But my Nina is strong. I know she will survive.”

Bozer doesn’t know if it’s worse to have lost someone to unspeakable violence, or to know that they might be forced to be part of it. _If one of the gangs had gotten Jerry to join them, we would have been devastated._ It’s not the same, but he can understand a little of that fear. _Growing up in our neighborhood was like living in a war zone, in a way._ Adults and children gunned down in random, senseless violence. Gangs recruiting what amounted to their own child soldiers, taking advantage of the fear and anger that smoldered under the surface. Women and girls forced into unimaginable lives because they felt like they had no choice, if they wanted to survive.

“Is that why you stay?” He asks.

“I know she will come back to me one day.” Solomon looks up at the tree again.

“Solomon, my friends are gonna do everything they can to put out the fire, but if they can't, we need to talk about an evacuation plan.” Boze doesn’t want to think that they’re going to have to abandon hope. That’s not his nature. But it’s also not in his nature to stand by and let people die. _I lost Momma because she was so trapped in our past that she couldn’t let go and try to move on._ Mourning her lost child eventually killed her. He doesn’t want to watch that happen to Solomon.

“You see, you say “we” but when you evacuate, where will you go?” Solomon asks.

“Los Angeles.” Bozer says, almost without thinking. He picks up his shovel again, he needs to be working or the past is going to threaten to overwhelm him too.

“Because that is your home, right? You will board a plane and you will fly far away, and in a couple of weeks, you will forget about all of this.”

Bozer stops digging. “That's not true.”

“No, it's okay.” Solomon doesn’t sound bitter at all. “These are not your problems, not really. It wasn't your grandfather that planted this tree. When you evacuate, you will go home. But where will my Nina go if I'm not here when she returns?” Bozer nods. He can’t argue with that.

“Okay, firebreak’s finished,” He says, jamming the point of his shovel into the ground. “I’m gonna ask Riley where Mac and Jack and Sam are at.” _We have to make this work. These people are depending on us to pull off a miracle._ But he knows Mac can do it.

He jogs over to where Riley is standing. She’s tapping at her comm unit, frowning. Bozer can hear something coming through, staticky. “Riley, Bozer...the wellhe...about to...Riley…”

“Mac, we can’t hear you.” Riley says, and she’s tapping at her rig.

“Can you hear me?” Mac’s voice sounds desperate.

“Say again, Mac?”

“The wellhead’s about to explode! Get everyone inside, now!” Riley slams her rig shut and starts to run out into the center of the square. And then the ground rumbles, there’s a high-pitched whine, and a dull slam of an explosion. People start screaming and running for cover, and Riley turns to come back under the roof when Bozer sees chunks of flaming debris filling the air and falling. A piece of pipe is headed straight for Riley.

He doesn’t even think, just grabs her and tackles her out of the way, the two of them rolling over and over as the pipe thuds into the ground beside them. Riley’s panting, eyes wide.

“Are you okay?” Bozer asks when they stop rolling, Riley underneath him. _If something else falls out of the sky, I’m not gonna let it hit her._  

“You’re on fire,” Riley gasps.

He can feel the adrenaline rush kicking in now, he’s ridiculously hysterical. “I know, right? That was pretty dope of me. Move over Liam Neeson, the B-O-Z…” Riley cuts him off, her voice worried and insistent.

“Bozer, you're on fire! You're on fire!” He glances over his shoulder and sees the flames in his shirt. He’s pretty sure he starts screaming as he rolls over, putting them out in the dirt. When he looks up sheepishly and sees Riley’s amused face, he knows he was.

“Any chance we could pretend that last part didn't happen?” Riley drags him to his feet and pulls him back under the roof.

The sat phone is ringing, and Boze glances at it. “It’s Matty, what do we do?”

“She can’t see us. Just be cool.” Riley’s hurriedly pulling her rig back up. “I have to get Mac and the others back online.” He can hear the worry in her voice. _They had a truck full of jet fuel. If one of those pieces of flaming debris fell on their car…_ They were probably close enough to the wellhead that they were in danger. _Jack would have known what could happen. Maybe he made them get out of the truck._ He hopes so.

“H-hey, Matty, what’s up?”

He knows he blew it the second he hears Matty’s voice. “I have Mac, Jack and Cage patched in as well. The oil company said that the pressure underground is building faster than they expected. They’re trying to remotely open valves to release pressure, but the heat is making it difficult. And methane gas is leaking into an undergrond geological pocket and could ignite at any minute.”

“Meaning what exactly?” Riley asks.

Jack cuts in. “Meaning what just happened is only the warm-up for the main event.”

“Riley, Bozer, where are you?” Matty asks. _She knows. She totally knows._

Riley takes the phone. “We’re right where you said we should be.” And then something falls behind them with a clang, fire whooshing as whatever it is lands on one of the oil slicks. Riley cringes at the voice that comes out of the other end of the line.

“Drop whatever it is you're doing and get out of that town immediately. Do you hear me? The oil company said the entire pipeline's gonna blow in half an hour.” Bozer glances at Riley, eyes wide. _We ran out of time. We’re not going to make it._ “Riley, Bozer, gather the people and evac the town now.”

Riley shakes her head. “But, Matty, we can't just abandon every…”

“You can when it's a direct order, Riley. I'm pulling the plug.”

Bozer grabs the phone back. “All due respect, Matty, I'm watching a man risk his life to save a tree. I'm not running till he does.”

“Bozer's right, Matty. If we don't put out that fire, the whole country's gonna be reduced to ash.” Riley sets down the phone. “Bozer, we don’t have much time. So we’d better be ready to do whatever Mac needs the second they show up.”

He switches over to just talking to them on comms. “Mac, what are you gonna need when you get here?” They can at least get everything ready.

“We have to heat-shield everything. So…” Mac pauses. “Bozer, get the locals to help you detach as many of those corrugated tin roofs as they can. And we need space blankets from the emergency kits. As many as possible.”

“We need a med kit, too,” Jack says, and there’s a tinge of exasperation in his voice. “Or were you gonna conveniently forget that part, hoss?” Mac sighs. _He got hurt again._ Bozer’s a little sad that that’s not even surprising. Whether Mac’s a vigilante or a secret agent, some things never change.

“We can do that,” Bozer says. “What’s your ETA?”

“Less than ten minutes…” Mac cuts off, and there’s some kind of sound that seems like engines and yelling. “Um...we might be a little late…” Bozer doesn’t like the sound of that, and even worse, he thinks he can hear Cage yelling “incoming” in the background noise, she has her comm off or she lost it.

“How late?”

Jack is shouting now. “Bozer, it’ll be a miracle if we ever get there!”

* * *

Sam watches Mac tug on the band of his watch, twisting it around his wrist, while she ties her bandanna around his leg. It’s not ideal, but they’ll have a medical kit when they get back to the village. Mac says they have to stop there anyway. _If we didn’t need whatever it is he’s getting, I’m sure he’d want to wait until we put the fire out to do anything about his leg_. “Mac, I don’t usually crawl inside people’s heads unless I’m being paid to do it, but for what it’s worth, I think you need to be careful.”

Mac sighs. “I know James is dangerous…”

“That’s not what I mean. I mean that somewhere inside you, there is still that ten-year old boy who desperately wants his father to be proud of him. And James could find a way to exploit that.” She knows Jack’s worried about the same thing. _Maybe if more than one person is reminding Mac of that, he’ll listen._

“I’m not going to suddenly decide to join him.” Mac’s voice is instantly cold.

“I didn’t say you would. But...I don’t know if facing that man down in person is the best way for you to get closure.” _All James is going to do is reopen every scar he left on Mac’s mind. Tear him apart piece by piece._ That man has never, and will never, see Mac as anything other than something he can tear down at his every whim.

“I’m the only one who can bring him in.” Mac insists. “No one else has been able to do it. Walsh tried, for years, before he went bad, and he’s the closest anyone got. Phoenix, CIA, FBI, half the foreign agencies out there, they’ve all tried. But he’s always one step ahead, because they don’t know how he thinks. I do.”  

There’s a rumbling thud and the truck bounces sharply. Mac winces and grimaces, forcing down a pained groan. “Jack, try and avoid the potholes?” He mumbles through clenched teeth.

“That wasn’t me, Mac.” Jack sounds worried. Really worried. “Ground’s shakin’.” He stops the truck, and in the sudden stillness, Sam can feel the ground moving. There’s a high-pitched whirring, whistling noise too.

“That sound can only mean one thing,” Jack says. “Get out of the truck. Right now!” he yells, shoving at them. Mac scrambles out, falling clumsily to one knee when he catches his bad leg on the door. Jack rushes around and grabs his arm. “The wellhead’s going to explode.”

Mac shouts into the comms. “Riley, Bozer, get everyone inside, the wellhead’s about to explode!” Clearly, its not getting through, because he keeps repeating himself as Jack drags him into the woods, Sam following, tripping over her loose shoes. And then there’s a rumbling roar, and Sam flinches at the explosion. It’s as loud and jarring as the nuclear bomb a month ago in Azerbaijan.

Pieces of flaming debris fly overhead, and now Sam can see why Jack pulled them all out of the truck. _If one of those hits that fuel barrel, we’d have been toast._ They’re far enough into the woods that the trees are protecting them from the worst of the debris. Sam brushes a flaming hunk of something off her jacket with a shudder.

Jack’s sat phone rings just as they’re headed back to the truck, it looks like the worst is over, and nothing blew up. Yet.

“Hi Matty. Yeah, she’s still with us.” He hands the phone to Sam. “You lose your comms?” She puts a hand to her ear, then nods. She didn’t notice until now; one of those punches must have knocked it loose. “Hey Matty.”

“I couldn’t get any of you on comms, and even when Mac and Jack’s signals popped up, yours was missing.”

“Oh, were you actually worried about me? How sweet,” Sam chuckles as they climb into the truck. She can hear Matty talking to Bozer and Riley as well, reassuring them that she has everyone accounted for.

“The oil company said that the pressure underground is building faster than they expected.” She rattles off a few more facts that Sam is pretty sure should be worrying.

“Meaning what exactly?” Riley asks.

Jack glances over at the wellhead. “Meaning what just happened is only the warm-up for the main event.”

Clearly Matty’s aware of exactly where Riley and Bozer are, because she starts ordering them to leave. Sam cringes at the timetable. _Half an hour to stop the pipeline from blowing._ And they’re still ten minutes from the village. _How long will it take Mac to prep the truck?_ She hears Matty hang up, clearly exasperated with them for disobeying orders. Sam can’t bring herself to care all that much. She’s already almost died so many times, it barely registers anymore. _If we don’t put that fire out, and the whole thing blows, Matty being pissed will be the least of my concerns._

Mac is still talking on comms, probably to Riley and Bozer.

“We have to heat-shield everything. So…” Mac stops to think for a second. “Bozer, get the locals to help you detach as many of those corrugated tin roofs as they can. And we need space blankets from the emergency kits. As many as possible.”

“We need a med kit, too,” Jack says insistently. “Or were you gonna conveniently forget that part, hoss?” Mac sighs.

“We can do that,” Bozer says. “What’s your ETA?”

“Jack!” Sam shouts. There’s dust on a road above and to their right. She can see the glimmer of the dim, smoky light on guns and pickup grilles. “Rebels, lots of them, headed our way.”

“Not for long!” Jack guns the engine and they shoot past the spot where the roads intersect, seconds before the other vehicles race down. Sam ducks as more gunfire rakes their truck. _We can’t take much more before they hit the fuel._

Jack’s watching the RPMs climb. “Mac, we're too heavy and slow to ditch these guys.”

Mac nods, then glances into the back, and he’s getting the look that means he’s got an absolutely insane idea. “But what if we weren't? I got an idea, but I don't think you're gonna like this.”

Jack looks back, then over at Mac, and starts to laugh “I think I'm gonna like it. I think I'm gonna like it a lot!”

Sam already knows what this is. “Oh, no. That’s just a movie trick. It'll never work in the real world.”

“It will,” Mac insists, wincing as he pulls his leg up to remove his own shoelaces. “The physics itself is sound. I'm just...um...not sure if the truck's gonna hold together.” He holds up the laces. “See, using my own this time.”

“That’s great,” she says sarcastically.

Mac starts to pull himself out the back window again, and Jack lets go of the wheel with one hand to grab his belt. “Whoa, whoa, whoa kid, last time you went out there they tried to turn you into Swiss cheese.”

“Does anyone else here know their way around the mechanics of a jet engine?” Mac asks. _How do_ you? _On second thought, maybe I don’t want to know._ Jack shakes his head and glances at Sam. She gives him an apologetic shrug.

“Okay, fine. Do it, but do it fast.”

“Fast is the only way to do this.” And then Mac’s gone, out the window. Sam leans out, using up her last mag to give him some cover fire, and it’s a relief when he slides back inside undamaged. Or at least as undamaged as he was when he left.

“You know what'd be really good to have right now?” Sam asks. When Mac shakes his head, she grins. “Seat belts. Just saying.”

“Okay, if you’re gonna engage the hyperdrive, do it now!” Jack yells.

“Throw it in neutral or we’ll destroy the drivetrain!” Jack does, and just as they start to slow, Mac yanks on the shoelace cord, and all of a sudden they’re rocketing down the road. Sam has just enough coherent thought left to be grateful they’re on a straight stretch. She hears a couple loud crashes from behind them, the rebels’ trucks probably got caught in the blowback from the engine.

And then they’re slowing down, coasting to a rattling stop. Jack whoops, then turns around and grabs her, and before Sam’s really aware of what’s happening, he’s kissing her. He pulls back in the next second, glancing at her apologetically.

“Sorry, sorry, I’m just...I can’t believe that actually worked!”

Mac is laughing, it sounds like he’s bordering on hysteria. “I told you the physics was sound.”

“Yeah, but that’s what you said before I busted my arm in an Argentinian dumpster,” Jack chuckles. “Now let’s get back to the village. I don’t think we’re actually gonna be late after all.”

“We’re not driving all the way back with the jet engine, Jack.” He actually looks slightly disappointed.

When they do pull up, still only a couple minutes later than planned, Riley and Bozer meet them, carrying sheet metal and looking both worried and relieved.

“Man is it good to see you guys,” Bozer says.

“We saw everything on the drone’s camera,” Riley adds. “It looked like one of those Youtube videos with a ‘‘don’t try this at home’ disclaimer.”

“It looked wicked awesome,” Bozer insists. “Can I do it?”

“If this next part works, I’ll drive you myself,” Jack says. Sam scrambles out of the truck. She can still smell the jet fuel, and something about that doesn’t seem right. She jumps up in the pickup bed and feels liquid coating her hands and knees. The back of the bed is awash in a thin slick of fuel. _We have to get this out of here before a spark lands in it._ She looks up toward the front and flinches.

 _Oh no._ At some point, probably when they turned on the engine, the fuel drum tipped over. It wasn’t tied down like the engine was, and Mac had opened it to get the fuel line in. She quickly pushes it upright, but it’s already too late to salvage much. “Uh, Mac?” She calls him over and points to the barrel. “It tipped over when the truck took off.” Mac sighs, biting his lip and mumbling something about forgetting to factor in inertia. “I’m guessing this is a problem.” Sam sloshes what’s left around the bottom. “There’s not a lot left in here. How much do we need to put out that fire?”

“Uh...more than that.” Mac glances around, she can almost see him thinking. “Guess we’ll just have to make our own.”

* * *

Bozer and Riley fill them in on what’s happened in the village while Riley patches up Mac’s leg with something other than Cage’s bandanna, and then Sam, Jack and Bozer start covering the truck in sheet metal while Mac works on a homemade fuel distilling system. It’s almost as crude as the oil that’s coming up out of the ground, but it should do the trick. The villagers form a bucket brigade bringing oil from the ground to where Mac has set up his makeshift equipment over a fire.

The kids are helping find oil deposits and run buckets back to the front of the line, but in between the busier moments, Mac points out pieces of the apparatus he’s built and explains how it works.

“Oil is made out of really old dead things, so basically it’s a combination of chains of carbon-based molecules,” Mac explains. “Some are short and some are long.” He sketches a rough diagram of some of them in the sand with a stick. “Boiling the oil coming out of the ground separates the short molecules from the long ones, which will cool and condense and then collect in this container here.” He traces the path of the oil with his stick. “And when this bucket gets full, we’re gonna dump it in that barrel, through the piece of cloth on top, and put another one under there.”

“You explain things well,” Nasha says, and he jumps slightly. He didn’t see her come up behind him.

“Oh, don’t give the substitute teacher all the credit. You’ve got some very smart kids there,” Mac says. They understand what he’s saying better than some adults he’s met. “And I think they have a pretty good regular teacher as well.”

“I do what I can,” Nasha says, shrugging. “It is hard to find books here, especially new ones.” She glances at the building Mac guesses is probably the schoolhouse. “Many times I need to make corrections, or to tell them what I remember from my own classes.”

“You’re doing a good job.” He smiles. “The kids are lucky to have someone who cares about them so much, and who works so hard.”

Nasha looks at the crowd working around the still, the hubbub by the truck, and the calculations Mac’s been doing on the ground in front of him. “Can you be honest with me, MacGyver?” He flinches. He’s known she knows, probably has ever since she saw his reaction to being tied up. _She said she’s seen the people who come back, after being trafficked. I know I have the same trauma._ “Will this work?”

 _Okay, this question I can deal with_. “Jet engines are actually pretty simple machines. They add fuel to a flowing stream of air and massively increase the force of that air by heating it up. So, in theory, anything combustible should do the same thing. Like crude oil refined into homemade gasoline.” He shrugs. “The problem is, there are still going to be impurities in it, even though we boiled and strained it. Eventually that’s going to clog the engine.”

Nasha’s eyes are wide with amazement. “You know so much about these things.”

“Well, I worked on engines when I was a kid, and...I guess I just remember everything I ever read. It’s all somewhere up in here.” He taps his forehead, grinning.

“Then why…” She trails off and stands up sharply.

“Why what?” Mac asks.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think…” She looks like a child who’s being asked to confess to breaking a window. Guilty, but afraid to say anything.

“Something’s bothering you. You can tell me.” She takes a deep shaky breath, crouching down again to look him in the eyes.

“I always tell myself that educating these children will keep them safe. From the wars. From the traffickers. But...you are the smartest person I have ever met...and you were still a slave too.” She isn’t even looking at him now, just staring at the ground. “I am sorry to say anything about it, but I have to know...am I lying to myself? Am I really helping them at all?”

Mac swallows. “I...I wasn’t really…” He didn’t get snatched from his home or convinced someone could give him a better life, not like these kids. _It’s not the same. It wasn’t like that..._ And then he remembers Connors, and too many others, and the same thing all of them said. ‘You’re mine now.’ _They called me their property._ He’s heard of traffickers that tattoo their victims to identify them, and he’s seen the scars on the arms of the teens who were child soldiers with the Damisa, where they cut or burned off those leopard-claw tattoos. _No one did that to me, but they might as well have, because everyone could see what I was._ They might as well have written all those words in ink on his skin. _Puta._ _Prison whore. Slave_.

He swallows. He doesn’t have time for self-pity, and Nasha is only looking more and more distraught. He has to reassure her. “It’s not the same. You are helping them. Making sure people can’t lie to them and exploit their hope for a better life, because you’re giving them one already.”

She doesn’t look completely convinced, but some of the anxiety fades. He hates that pity replaces it. “I thought people like you were safe.” Nasha says, and there’s a deep sympathy in her voice. “I thought Americans…”

“No place is perfect,” Mac says. “It’s human nature. Some people are always going to prey on those who can’t defend themselves.” He takes a shallow, shuddery breath. “People are people, no matter what country they live in.”

The pity in Nasha’s soft eyes is unmistakable. Mac flinches.

“Hey Mac, you ready to rumble?” Jack calls. “We’ve got that barrel about halfway full and the truck’s all sheeted. I don’t think we can wait any longer.” He jogs over, and clearly misinterprets what the whole conversation was about, because he grins. “Come on, you can talk to the girl after we save the world, hero.”

“Matty just called,” Riley says. “She says the oil company was able to open the rest of the valves. But it only bought us about twenty more minutes before the wellhead blows and vaporizes anything or anyone remotely close.”

“Thanks for the pep talk, Riley.” Jack rolls his eyes, and Mac manages a shaky laugh. “Let’s go make Red Adair and Grandpappy Merritt proud, okay?”

* * *

THE WELLHEAD

AT LEAST IF THEY MESS UP, THEY WON’T HAVE TIME TO REGRET IT

Jack can tell something’s bothering Mac from the second the two of them get in the pickup. And it seems like something other than the probability of imminent death. Mac never seems to worry too much about that.

Maybe it’s the village Mac’s so worried about. He promised over and over to help, and Jack knows how badly the kid hates seeing innocent people get hurt. And he seems pretty attached to those kids. And the teacher. _Maybe he’s afraid of failing them and being responsible for their deaths._ That’s how the kid’s twisted logic works in these situations. _Even though he’s not responsible for putting people in danger, if he can’t save them he thinks what happens to them is his fault._

“Hey, this is gonna work,” Jack says.

Mac nods. “I know.” The air is getting hotter and harder to breathe.

“We’re gonna snuff this overgrown birthday candle and be home in time for dinner,” Jack says. “Hey, what _are_ we gonna be eating tonight? You think if we save the village they’ll feed us? I’m sure there’s at least one who wouldn’t mind making _you_ dinner.” _It’s a shame they live on different continents._ It looked like Mac and Nasha were really starting to click. Aside from that awkward thing Jack walked into right before they left. Mac and Nasha both looked shook up from it. _I mean, thinking you’re probably gonna die tends to put a damper on wondering about a future_.

“You mean Nasha?” Mac laughs but there’s no humor in it. “Um, that’s not...we aren’t…” He sighs. “She’s just worried about the kids and she wanted to know if the engine was gonna work.”

“That didn’t look like all it was,” Jack smirks, and realizes it was the wrong thing to say because Mac just implodes.

“Jack, what she said…” Jack watches the kid swallow hard, and if he wasn’t already sweating from the heat, Jack’s pretty sure he’d be doing it from stress. “She asked why if I was so smart, if I knew all these things, I still ended up as a slave. She knew what happened to me.”

“Mac…” He starts, but the kid’s upset and when he is, he just steamrolls on and doesn’t listen to anyone.

“She’s right, Jack. That’s all I was, to them.” He shudders. “Everyone can see it. Murdoc could see it, those men at the garage, the poker players, even the village schoolteacher. They all know I’m ruined.”

“Hey. None of that now.” Jack shakes his head. “Don’t you dare say that.” He didn’t realize teasing Mac about the girl was going to set off this cascade of self-loathing. He wishes he hadn’t said a thing.

“But it’s true.” Mac’s voice is bitter. “I can’t change what happened. For the rest of my life, that’s what they made me. They might as well have branded me like the Damisa do their child soldiers. It’s all anyone ever sees.”

“It’s not what _I_ see.” Jack says. _I can’t say that I don’t know that part of what he’s saying is true. That somehow, the worst of humanity seems to find him, to single him out, to know that he’s damaged and twist the knife in the wound._

He sighs, remembering what Bozer told them when they got back to the village, about Solomon and Nina. “Do you think that village chief is going to care what happened to his daughter, if she ever finds her way home? He knows what they’ll do to her. But he still wants her back; he’s willing to die waiting for her, because he is never going to give up hoping to have his child back in his arms. Because that’s what a good father does.” Mac’s eyes are shining with tears. “He doesn’t care what’s been done to her, or what she’s done, because she is his child and nothing in the world will make him love her less.” Mac swallows hard. “I don’t care what anyone did to you. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to gut every single one of the people who ever hurt you, but it’s never going to change the fact that you are my son and that’s the only thing that ever matters.”

He wants to hug Mac, but they don’t really have time for this right now, and Mac is clearly getting more and more uncomfortable with how emotional they both are. _We gotta work on that, but we gotta live through this first_. “Uh, unless we want our faces to melt off, like at the end of Raiders, I think we oughta get outta here.”

“Yeah, this is as close as we can get without cooking,” Mac says.

Jack reaches for the door handle, wrapping one of the space blankets around as much of his body as he can. “What’s that smell?”

“Tires melting.” Mac’s adjusting his own blanket.

“You don’t sound worried about that?”

“We need them to anchor the truck so the jet’s thrust doesn’t push it away from the fire.” Mac tugs his own door open, and the blast of heat is nauseating. “Let’s go!” They both jump out of the truck and run for a makeshift shelter of a couple of oil barrels and some more of the tin, that Sam is behind with the drone remote, which Mac repurposed into something that will turn on the engine. _That’s gonna be fun, explaining why he broke a drone that cost the Phoenix thousands of dollars to develop, and that no, he can’t put it back together because the pieces are still on a jet engine in Nigeria, probably beyond repair_.

Mac stumbles, his bad leg giving out on him again, and rolls, legs flailing like a flipped turtle. Jack grabs him by the collar and drags him back to his feet and over behind the shelter, ignoring Mac’s muffled protests. He can smell the kid’s hair scorching in the heat, and any part of his body not shielded by the space blanket feels like it’s burning up. Dropping behind the tin shielding is a relief.

“Ready?” Sam asks.

“Make a wish,” Jack chuckles.

“Is it cool if I just wish for this to work?” Cage says. Mac grins.

“Hit it.” Jack ducks even lower as the engine kicks in with a roar. “Hey Mac, you think we oughta start running, just in case?”

“If it’s gonna blow, it’s already too late to outrun it.” Mac is huddled up tightly, and Jack rests a hand gently on his shoulder. _If I’m gonna die, kiddo, there’s no one I’d rather die with._

There’s a deep, muffled roar, and then...nothing. Jack glances over the top of the shelter. The fire is totally out, and the last of the smoke is drifting up and floating away.

“We did it!” He pulls Cage into a clumsy hug, and helps Mac to his feet, throwing an arm around the kid’s shoulders. Mac surprises him by actually throwing his arms around Jack and clinging like a burr. Jack’s not going to argue with that. He holds onto the kid with one hand and brushes his other through Mac’s ash-dulled hair. “Good job, kiddo. I think old Red would be proud.”

“I think your grandfather would be proud,” Sam says.

“Yeah, he would.” Jack smiles. “Of all of us.”

* * *

Riley’s leaning on the back of the exfil vehicle, looking at the village, when the phone rings. _They got some of the roofs repaired before exfil showed up, at least._ A couple of houses still need help, as does the school, but there should be aid groups coming into the area now that the fire is out and it’s safe to send help. _We weren’t about to try pulling it off that truck again._

She pulls out the sat phone and answers. “Hi Ma...Patty?”

“Matty informed me that I was needed for a disciplinary meeting?” Riley sighs. “Is Bozer there?”

“Yeah, I’ll get him.” She walks over to where Bozer is chasing a couple of the kids, along with Solomon, with avocado slices in front of his eyes. “Hey Boze, Patty needs to talk to us.”

“I figured I’d tell you now, save you the fight-home anxiety,” Patty says when Bozer comes over to the phone. “You two disobeyed orders and stayed in the town. By doing so, you helped to save it. Your actions were brave, even noble, but they could've gotten you killed, which would have put the success of our entire mission at risk.”

“I understand.” Riley knows it’s pointless to argue.

“That said…” Patty’s voice softens. “Director Webber and I have discussed the situation, and given the fact that you were successful, and that frankly, in your shoes, we probably would have done the same thing,” Riley can almost see that wry smile, “You will both be receiving an official reprimand in your records. No further action will be taken.”

“I think you’re starting to rack up as many as me,” Jack chuckles, coming over.

“That isn’t exactly something to be proud of, Jack,” Patty scolds, but there’s no anger in it. “I’ve told you this a dozen times.”

“I’m going for the agency record,” Jack insists.

“Well in that case, I’ll add one to yours for being an enabler and letting those two stay.”

“What? Riley’s a senior agent, she’s responsible for her own choices on ops now.”

“Oh, come on Jack. We all know you were in on this little plot to fool me,” Matty cuts in. “And anything Riley does, you trained her to do, so it’s technically your fault anyway.” Jack just laughs and puts an arm around Riley’s shoulders.

“Ready to go home, Ri?”

“Yeah.” She nods, and then climbs into the bed of the truck as they pull away.

* * *

PHOENIX R&D

MAC’S LAST CHANCE TO FIX THE DRONE BEFORE IT COMES OUT OF HIS PAYCHECK

Mac’s bent over a worktable, repairing the last of the drone’s control mechanism, when someone walks up, shoes clumping loudly. He already knows it’s Jill. She always comes up to his desk like that now, ever since his short-lived injury induced stint in the labs, when she scared him and he practically threw coffee all over them both.

“There’s a call in the War Room for you, Mac.” He looks up from the disassembled drone.

“For me?”

“Yeah, Matty’s been trying to get you on the phone.” Mac looks at the equally disassembled phone.

“Needed part of it for the drone control module,” he explains. Jill just nods. He stands up and heads for the door. “Thanks for letting me know about the call.”

He hurries up to the War Room, afraid Matty will be upset and the rest of the team will be waiting on him. But when he gets to the door, it’s just Matty, and she’s leaving. “I think she was expecting to talk to just you,” Matty says, smiling a little, and Mac gives her a confused glance. _She? Who is this?_ He steps inside and looks up at the screen.

“Nasha?” Mac asks.

“You told me you worked for the Phoenix Foundation,” she says. “I didn’t know if there was another number to call you at.” She smiles shyly, then glances at someone in the corner of the room. “This is how you do it, right? I’ve never called anyone before.”

“You’re doing great,” Mac reassures her.

“The aid workers installed a computer and a satellite uplink for the school,” she says, and there’s pure delight in her voice. “Now I can find information that’s up to date, and show the children videos of experiments we don’t have a lab to make.” She smiles. “They all want to learn about engines now.”

Mac chuckles, he still feels awkward talking to her after everything, even though he did see her before they left and sort of cleared things up. It’s not an easy thing to talk about, but she was kind and never pushed for anything he didn’t want to say.

“I just wanted to tell you,” she continues, “The Nigerian army moved into the area yesterday, they said the Damisa are fleeing now that their plan to torch the well failed. They...they liberated some of the prison camps. And there’s someone who wants to thank you for what you did. Well, two someones.” She motions someone over, and then Solomon and a young girl step into view.

“This is my Nina. She came home last night, because of what you did, MacGyver. Thank you.”

“Thank you,” The girl echoes, and Mac knows that sadness in her smile, he sees it in the mirror almost every day. But he also knows that coming home is going to start the healing. _She’s back with the people who love her. And that changes everything._

Jack was right. It doesn’t matter what he was, or what happened to him. What matters is who he is now. Who he became. And looking at that reunited family, Mac knows that no matter what, the only parts of himself that need to define him are the ones Jack says he sees. _Hero._ _And Son._

* * *

PENA’S HOUSE

THIS TIME MAC’S PHONE IS ON

Annabelle eagerly tears the paper off the box Mac brought her, grinning. _I missed her birthday, because of the whole oil well thing, but I still wanted to do something special._ “I know, I’m a little late, but…”

“Thank you!” she exclaims, and then in typical small child fashion, totally unfazed, asks, “What is it?”

“It’s called a tether car,” Mac explains. “When your dad was a teenager, he used to spend his summers working as a mechanic, so I thought we could build this together, and you could have something that reminds you of him.”

“It’s so cool.” She runs a finger over the blue paint.

“I used to work on cars too,” Mac says. “Sometimes I still do.” He smiles, thinking of ripping apart their minivan in Mission City, or improving Jack’s car for the street races, or mounting a pickup with a jet engine. _Matty got after Jack for calling it ‘making the jump to light speed’ in his action report._ “You know that group of friends I was telling you about? The ones who are a lot like family?” Annabelle nods. “Well, one time we made a truck fly.”

Annabelle laughs. “No way. That's silly.”

Mac makes a mock-offended face. “I'm serious. It's true. Well, it's halfway true,” he hedges. “We were running away from these rebels in Nigeria, and, um…” He’s not really sure how to say this in a way that doesn’t violate the Espionage Act. _Great, way to put your foot in your mouth_ again, _MacGyver._ He really probably shouldn’t be trusted with kids. _I hope Nasha’s class isn’t trying to distill their own gasoline now._ Maybe he should have thought of that before explaining everything...

He’s saved from trying to figure that out by Maria yelling from the house. “Guys, dinner's ready!”

Mac starts to stand up. “And you know what? _That_ is a story for another time. And until then, I think we should pinky swear never to mention that to anyone.” Annabelle nods solemnly, eyes wide. Mac holds out his finger, and she hooks hers around it.

“All right? Good.” She smiles. “Knew I could trust you.” He twists his hand into hers and they walk up the steps and into the house together.

 


	7. Duct Tape+Jack

###  207-Duct Tape+Jack

SOMEWHERE IN THE CARPATHIAN MOUNTAINS

VAMPIRES DO NOT EXIST…

Mac leans back against a tree. He doesn’t think anything is broken. But that still doesn’t mean he’s going to be able to make it to the rendezvous point. 

He glances at the leg stretched out in front of him, and he knows it’s his imagination but it hurts just to  _ look _ at it. That twisted knee is nothing good. At least it’s making the scrapes and gashes from tree branches feel insignificant. 

He starts cutting apart his parachute harness to use the straps for splinting.  _ I’m lucky that when I cut myself free and fell, nothing worse happened.  _ He tried to tuck and roll when he hit the ground, like Jack taught him, but his right leg caught awkwardly underneath him, and that knee’s been a problem since he was nineteen and tore the ACL on one of his late-night vigilante excursions.  _ Apparently jumping off a roof and falling out of a tree have similar consequences. Who knew? _

He wishes Jack was here. But they got separated by the freak gusts that were much stronger than anticipated, and Mac landed over four miles from their rendezvous coordinates.  _ If Jack was here, he’d be talking about how this place reminds him of the forest moon of Endor and how we’re gonna get eaten by Ewoks, like he always does whenever we’re in the woods. _

“They weren’t going to eat them, Jack. They were going to sacrifice them to C-3PO because they thought he was a god,” Mac mutters out loud as he tries to straighten his knee. It’s either snark at imaginary Jack or scream in pain, and he’s going to go with the first option. 

“Cookin’ and sacrificin’s the same thing, man,” He replies in his best imitation of Jack’s gruff Texas accent.  _ Man, I really am getting bad if I’m talking to myself. I haven’t even been lost in the woods a whole hour yet and I’m cracking up. _ He’s waiting for Jack to pop out from behind a tree and insist that he most certainly does  _ not _ sound like that, but the woods are disappointingly quiet aside from the rustle of some small animals moving, and a few faint birdcalls. 

Mac shivers. It’s getting colder and colder now that the sun has set, and he remembers from the briefing that a storm was on its way. He wishes he could set up a shelter, but doing that requires getting up, and his leg won’t allow for that. He tries to remember what Jack said about insulating himself if he’s caught out in the wilderness. It feels like it’s been forever since that camping trip. 

The ground is covered in pine needles, and he stuffs handfuls of them into his jacket. They prickle whenever he moves, but he doesn’t plan on moving much, and they will give him some more warmth. 

He curls against the tree, hoping Jack finds him soon.  _ You should hope he doesn’t. You messed up this whole op because you couldn’t even land from a parachute drop properly.  _ He flinches at James’s voice in his head. 

“I don’t have to listen to a monster like you,” he says, out loud, hoping it helps. It doesn’t. 

_ You do when I’m right. This whole mission is a bust because of  _ you. _ You let Jack down. And now you’re hurt and he’s going to have to help you, because you can’t even get up. You’re just slowing him down. _

He shudders. Jack never says that...but maybe he thinks it.  _ He says he’s not going to get tired of you, Angus, but give him a couple years. I could only stand ten, and I’m your own father. _

Mac bites his lip. Is he really that much of a burden on everyone? His team doesn’t seem to think so, but they don’t know him like James did.  _ He watched me grow up, he knows me better than anyone. _

He just wants Jack, because James can’t get in his head when Jack is around.  _ And how sad is that, that you have to depend on someone else to protect you? You can’t even stand up for yourself, Angus. _ He’s not sure if that’s James or Murdoc speaking now...he’s too tired to know for sure...

He’s woken up by a terrible crash of thunder. It’s still a few miles away, he guesses after seeing the next flash of lightning and waiting to hear the thunder. According to his watch, it’s three a.m. 

He wonders if it’s safe to be sitting under this tree in the lightning storm. He doesn’t want to think about the last time he was in the woods in a storm.  _ I’m not in nearly as bad shape as I was in Kazakhstan.  _

He hopes the pine he’s under will be enough protection from the worst of the storm. All he can do is wait while the thunder comes closer and closer. The first hiss of rain on leaves and the ground makes him shiver.  _ I can’t get wet, I’m already so cold.  _ The pine needles aren’t doing as much good as he’d hoped. 

The rain gets stronger, a grey-white sheet in the intermittent flashes of lightning, and it starts to drip down from the sodden branches above him. He shivers and huddles up as much as his injured leg will let him.  _ I’ll be okay. _ It’s just a few drops, even if they are sliding down the back of his neck and making him that much colder. 

But the rain doesn’t stop. It gets worse, and worse. Mac thinks the air is becoming water. And then the wind starts. A driving, powerful gale that starts lashing the trees back and forth, pulling the branches away and making the whole tree creak. Mac can hear limbs tearing free and falling, and there’s an ominous cracking from above him.  _ Something’s breaking. _

He throws himself to the side, biting off a scream that is drowned out by the sounds of the storm, as a branch crashes down almost directly where he was sitting. The pain in his knee is as white and blinding as a lightning flash, and he can’t do anything but lay there in the rain and mud until it fades.  

It’s not safe to be under a tree until this is over. He curls over himself to protect his body from the rain and wind. He can’t stop shaking, trapped and defenseless in the lashing, driving storm. The rain is so thick he can barely see a foot in front of him. 

And then it stops. The winds die down, the rain tapers off, and the only sounds are the faint, distant rumbles of thunder, the constant dripping of rain off the tree branches, and Mac’s teeth chattering. 

He’s soaking wet and freezing. He needs to get warm,  _ now. _ He’s alone, he has to do this himself because no one else is coming to help him.  _ If you can’t figure it out, then you don’t deserve their help anyway. _

He drags himself back under his tree, that limb that fell is green, but it’s green  _ pine _ , so the sap should light. And any dead wood, if he could even get up to find it, would be sodden from the rain anyway. He shakes the worst of the water off the branches, snaps the ones he can into manageable lengths, and begins making a pile that he can add once he gets a fire started. 

The pine needles inside his jacket are at least somewhat dry, he might be able to use them as tinder. But he needs a spark.  _ I need a flint. _ He really ought to carry one on his knife.  _ Grandpa always had one attached to his. _ But he lost that a long time ago. 

He feels around the ground for a rock, hoping he’ll be fortunate and find a flint-like one. When he feels one that has sharp, smooth edges, he picks it up and hopes for the best. He holds it over the fire and strikes a knife blade against it. There’s no spark. But Jack taught him it can take a few tries, so he doesn’t plan on immediately giving up. He strikes the rock again and again, but nothing happens. It’s not the right kind. 

He feels like crying. His hands are numb and he can’t even feel the knife or the stone in them.  _ Am I going to die out here because I can’t get a fire started? _ He’s too cold and exhausted to keep doing this. James’s voice is back, reminding him that all this is his own fault. _ If you can’t even manage to succeed at a basic skill like starting a fire, you deserve to freeze.  _ He’s seven again, shivering in the woods while he watches James set a few more logs on his own perfect blaze, trying again and again to get his pitiful pile of sticks and leaves to catch.  _ ‘It’s not that hard, Angus.’  _ James’s voice is exasperated.  _ ‘How did I end up with a child like you?’ _

He tucks his numb fingers under his arms, hoping to warm them at least a little.  _ I’ll just rest for a few minutes, get some feeling back in my hands. I can’t fall asleep.  _

But the next time he opens his eyes, there’s a greyish sunlight filtering through the trees. For a moment he can’t remember where he is, or why he’s so cold. And then he moves, just a little, his knee flares up with a sudden, blinding pain, and he remembers.  _ Jack and I jumped out of a plane. The wind was stronger than we thought, we got separated. I got tangled up in a tree, and had to cut myself down, and I twisted my knee. And then it rained. _

The slightly soggy remains of his attempt at a fire are still there in front of him. He glances around, trying to think of what he has that might help him.  _ Figure it out, Angus. You’re missing the obvious again _ . His phone is smashed and the battery wouldn’t work anyway for this, he can’t find a flint for his knife...And then he notices his watch poking out from under the sleeve of his shirt.  _ The watch crystal. I can use it like a magnifying glass to focus the sunlight, get enough of a concentrated beam to light the tinder. _ He pulls off the watch, pops out the crystal with his knife, and holds it up to the light. The sunlight isn’t incredibly strong, but it is focusing in a nice bright dot on the pine needles. It takes several agonizing minutes before they begin to smoke. Mac feeds the tiny, wavering flame with the driest needles he can find and sap-covered bits of bark he can pull off the tree. It goes out once, and he very nearly cries. But he can’t afford self-pity out here, and he forces himself to start all over again. This time, the flame grows slowly until it’s eating away at the sap-streaked branches and giving off a comforting, reassuring warmth. He has a fire now, he’ll be alright. 

James’s voice destroys the brief moment of accomplishment.  _ You only have that because of me, Angus. That’s  _ my _ watch you used.  _ He swallows hard, trying to make the voice stop. Jack would say he’s doing great…  _ Not when he finds out you ruined the whole op because you were clumsy. He would have been better off going in alone, or with Riley, or Cage, or  _ anyone _ else.  _

He pulls off his jacket and the long-sleeved shirt under that. They’ll dry faster if he can drape them over sticks by the fire. Just not too close. He shudders at how blue his fingernails look. 

He takes off his t-shirt long enough to wring any water he can out of it, then pulls it back on. He’s chillier with the wet cloth against him, but he feels a little more protected, and hopefully now that he has a fire he’ll start drying out.  _ Jack’s going to scold me for wearing cotton.  _ At least his pants are drying out fairly well. 

But eventually he’s going to run out of fuel, and he can’t exactly just get up and look for more.  _ Maybe my clothes will mostly dry out before then.  _ He sits as close to the flames as he dares, letting the warmth run up his arms. His back is still cold, but he doesn’t want to move the amount it will take to change position. His knee is no longer a knife pain, but it’s a dull, sickening ache that’s almost worse. 

He continues feeding the fire. It eats through wood scarily fast, and he’s still not any too dry by the time he runs out of branches from the fallen section. He wonders if he can use the tree to push himself up onto one leg and pull down a few more low-hanging branches to snap off. 

There’s a crashing in the bushes and Mac cringes.  _ Did I just draw that group of Hungarian anarchists right to my location? _ And then a gun pokes out, followed by familiar black tac gear. 

“Jack!”

“Hey, kiddo, saw the smoke, figured I’d better make sure you weren’t the main course at an Ewok ritual feast. What are you...oh damn.” Jack kneels next to him, gently inspecting his makeshift brace. He taps his ear, clearly  _ he _ still has his comm. “Matty, we’re gonna have to scratch this op. Mac’s down and he’s not walking outta here.” 

Jack looks up again a few seconds later. “Matty’s sending exfil, and Riley says there’s a road about half a mile east of us.”

“But I can’t…” Mac stops talking, and concentrates on not yelling in shock as Jack scoops him up off the ground, pine needles and all. 

“I got you, kiddo.” Mac is too cold and achy and tired to protest. He just leans against Jack’s warmth and finally feels safe. James’s voice fades out and all that’s left is Jack’s solid arms and steady heartbeat.  

* * *

Jack is not about to let the damn kid out of his sight ever again.  _ The second I lost him in the air, I knew something bad was gonna happen.  _ He hadn’t quite imagined that it would be Mac-nearly-freezing-to-death-with-a-messed-up-knee bad, but he’s learned that underestimating Mac’s potential for disaster is a bad idea. Carrying his shivering, muddy kid half a mile to exfil is not something he wants to do again.  _ I’m gonna throw my back out one of these times, and then who’s gonna carry both of us? _ He wishes he could make that joke to Mac, but the kid’s so touchy about any way he could be conceivably seen as a burden, literal or otherwise.  _ He’d think I actually meant it and insist I didn’t need to carry him. _

He’s deeply grateful when the second they get to the road, there’s one of the Phoenix SUVs sitting there waiting. It looks like a normal vehicle, avoiding drawing any special attention on the road, but the back is stripped out and converted into the closest thing to an ambulance without actually having an ambulance.

He settles Mac in the back, then sits down beside him even though the space is cramped and there’s an empty seat waiting for him up front. One of the medics pulls out a syringe, and Mac tries to push his hand away. “No, I don’t need anything for the pain, I’m fine,” he whispers.

Jack knows how much Mac hates to have any kind of medication.  _ It’s not just how weirdly a lot of painkillers affect him, he doesn’t even want to take cold medicine. _ He only agreed to take anything for his cough after their  _ last _ camping trip when Jack warned him that could escalate into pneumonia and then he’d be forced to take something stronger. It’s like Mac has something against making life easier for himself. 

But Jack doesn’t want to sit here and watch his kid suffer needlessly. “Mac, you oughta let them. That knee’s been twisted up all night, and it’s gonna be stiff. They gotta straighten it out and brace it properly and that’s gonna hurt like hell, so you better just take it. This time.” 

Mac finally nods, and Jack watches the liquid drain out of the needle into Mac’s still slightly blue-looking arm. He adjusts the emergency blankets that the medical crew spread over Mac until he’s tucked in as well as he can be under the circumstances, while they wait for the painkiller to kick in. 

The medical techs are efficient, and Jack watches them slice up the leg of Mac’s mud-caked pants, gently but firmly reposition his knee, and then clean up the area before fitting on a brace. Jack’s dislocated his kneecap a few times, he’s pretty familiar with those braces.  _ Mac’s gonna hate having that leg immobilized.  _

Jack lets the medics take his shirt and fuss over the two-inch gash on his shoulder and the bark scrapes up his stomach.  _ Yeah, my landing wasn’t any too smooth either.  _ But he wasn’t about to tell the kid about that.  _ Knowing Mac, he’d find a way to make my injuries his fault too. _

Once he’s bandaged up as well, he wraps a blanket around his own shoulders and leans back on the side of the SUV. They’re still two hours out from the airstrip and their ride back stateside, and he didn’t get a wink of sleep last night out searching for the kid. Mac’s fallen into a restless doze as well, and Jack is ready to crash. Relief is the best sedative in the world. 

He’s woken up by Mac’s voice. The kid is moving around, awake but not really, blinking at Jack unseeingly. When Jack leans in closer, Mac’s face crumples, he looks guilty and ashamed and so damn small.  _ What is this about? _

“I’m sorry…” Mac mumbles, looking at the side of the SUV instead of at Jack’s face. “I figured it out, I did. I know I should have done it faster…” 

“Hey, kiddo, it’s okay. We’re all okay, we’re goin’ home.” Jack reaches out for him, to give him a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder, and Mac  _ flinches. _ In a way Jack hasn’t seen in a long time. He throws his hands up to defend himself, and his eyes are blank and wide.  _ Damn it. _ That hadn’t sounded like a prison nightmare, or a Murdoc one, Jack had really thought touch would be a safe comfort.  _ What is this about? _

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do it,” Mac whispers. “I’ll figure it out, I will. I’ll do it right next time.” His fingers fumble for his pocket, and he pulls out his knife, and the small watch crystal he must have used to start his fire. He puts both of them in Jack’s outstretched hand.

“Kiddo, what…” Jack asks. 

Mac blinks. That weird fog is gone from his eyes now, and he stares uncomprehendingly at the knife and the broken watch in Jack’s hand, then glances at Jack.

“Don’t look at me, kid, you handed them to me.” Jack knows he must have that patented confused stare right now. 

“Oh.” Mac takes both back and shoves them into his pocket, hand shaking. “Sorry, I thought you were...I thought you were someone else.” 

“I kinda figured.” Jack reaches out and this time Mac doesn’t flinch when Jack gently turns him to look him in the eyes. “You were pretty far gone there, kiddo. Everything okay?”

Mac nods. “I told you I didn’t want the painkillers.” He’s still a little shaky, and there’s a hunted fear in his eyes that Jack doesn’t like. “It’ll be okay. It was just this mission.” He looks down at his hands. “When I couldn’t start the fire, it was so cold.” Jack says nothing. If the kid’s gonna talk, he’s not gonna mess it up. Mac’s been getting more comfortable letting Jack know when something’s not okay, but it normally takes near-death experiences or slightly artificially lowered defenses like this. Jack doesn't want to snap him out of it. “When we went camping, I told you my dad tried to teach me how to start a fire?” Jack isn’t going to forget that any time soon. Apparently the man handed Mac a knife and a flint and told him to figure it out. “He said I couldn’t have one unless I could build one. I tried all night, and it was so cold, and I just couldn’t do it.” His voice shakes slightly. “I’ve hated being cold ever since.” 

Jack takes a deep, slow breath.  _ Don’t lose it. He’s still not really all with it, you’ll scare him. _

“It wasn’t too bad the first night,” Mac continues. “But the second night it got colder.”  _ Who the hell watches a kid suffer for TWO NIGHTS in the middle of the damn woods and doesn’t lift a finger to help? Let alone a father watching that happen to his son. _ He wants to hit something. But Jack’s gotten really good at keeping his anger to himself, a skill he’s never had a great mastery of until the past year.  _ Riley always let herself get angry right along with me. _ Mac’s been taught that he’s always going to be the target whenever anyone’s angry. So Jack falls back on kindness. Somewhere in the kid’s past, someone loved him, or he wouldn’t be the person he is now. _ His mother must have been an absolute saint. _

“Are you still cold?” He asks.

“A little,” Mac admits, fingers clenching in the blankets. 

“Okay, kiddo.” Jack sits down behind him, pulling Mac’s back to his own bandaged chest. He rests his chin on the kid’s head, his hair is matted and smells like mud and pine sap. “I’m right here, okay? You’re not alone anymore.”

Mac mumbles something under his breath about not having been alone before, but Jack doesn’t know what he means by that. Maybe he’s starting to get really loopy again. 

“I’m sorry I screwed up the mission,” Mac whispers. “You could have finished it…”

“Mac, this kinda stuff happens. No one is mad at you, least of all me. Matty’s sending in a second team. It’s gonna be fine.” 

“But it’s my fault everything went wrong.”

Jack sighs, rubbing his thumb over the back of Mac’s hand. “Oh kiddo, it’s not. I promise. Bad landings just come with the territory, and no one coulda predicted that wind was gonna get so bad.” He chuckles. “You know the worst way I ever screwed up a Phoenix mission?”  _ I’m more than willing to embarrass myself if it’ll make him feel better.  _ “I was supposed to be trailing this arms dealer in Portugal, when he left his hotel to sell a WMD to some dime-a-dozen terrorist. And it happened to be the summer Lisbon had that shellfish food poisoning thing?” he chuckles. “It just  _ hit me _ . And I was in a hotel bathroom puking my guts out when our target left the building.” He shakes his head. “Riley had to pull sat tracking on his car and go get him herself. Granted, she got sick on the flight home…” 

Mac gives a weak chuckle. “Ok, that is more embarrassing.”

“Everybody goofs a parachute landing once in a while,” Jack says. “Especially when you’ve only really had the literal crash course.”  _ That was a fun weekend. _ Every agent has to be certified in bailouts and paradrops, but Mac’s fear of heights was a major issue. Still, they’d managed to get through the training in one piece and with Mac able to complete the required objectives. 

Mac just nods and nestles a little closer into Jack.  _ There’s nowhere else I want to be right now. _

* * *

DIANE’S APARTMENT

YES, RILEY’S LIVING WITH HER MOM RIGHT NOW

“Thanks for letting me crash here.” Riley still can’t believe she brought  _ bedbugs _ home from the last op.  _ I knew that hotel was sketchy. _

“Now what kind of a mother would I be if I didn’t let my daughter stay over?” Diane asks, taking Riley’s duffel bag and setting it on the end of the guest bed. “Besides, I’ll actually get to see you more than once every other week.” 

“Yeah.” Riley figures she really ought to spend more time with her mom. Jack had offered to let her crash at his place, he’s been staying over with Mac for a while to take care of Mickey while Bozer’s at work. Mac’s knee is almost back to normal, but he’s still not up to running around with a hyperenergetic puppy. But Riley thinks it’ll be good to come here.  _ Last time, Mom was trying to be a good guest, she felt bad about having to stay with me. _ Now that she has her own place, maybe she’ll be more comfortable and they can have some more conversations that they need to. 

“Do you want to go get dinner somewhere?” Diane asks.

“It doesn’t really matter to me, you know I don’t care if we’re eating leftovers.” Riley smiles. “Please, don’t worry about trying to treat me special.”

“But you are special. You’re my only baby girl.” 

“Mom, what is this about?” Riley asks. They got past the ‘I’m trying to make it up to you for bringing shitty men into your life and you having no control over that’ a long time ago. But Mom’s doing the same things she did then. 

“Do you think I’m such a mercenary that taking you out to dinner comes with strings attached?” Diane is smiling, clearly joking, and Riley relaxes.  _ Maybe I just read too much into everything now.  _ She guesses it comes with the territory of being a spy. And after Nick, she suspects almost everyone of ulterior motives. 

“Okay, that sounds good.” Riley grabs her jacket. 

The place they’re going isn’t far, a cute little retro-style diner down the street from the loft. It feels like a Jack place, and Riley suddenly wishes he was with them.  _ If he and Mom weren’t so stubborn about the past… _ There’s actually a pain in her throat at the thought of what could have been.  _ We could have been happy. _ But this job ruins everything. She can’t even tell her mom where she really was last weekend. 

“Is something wrong?” Diane asks, and Riley realizes she’s barely touched her tuna melt. 

“Um, no. Just thinking.” Riley shrugs. “Work’s been busy.”

Mom smiles. “That’s a good thing, I guess. I’m surprised how hectic the tile business is. You’re always jetting off to somewhere or taking calls at all hours.” 

Riley shrugs. “Yeah, it keeps me on my toes.” 

“I just always thought…” Mom trails off.  _ I know. You always thought I was going to end up programming for some big Silicon Valley company. _

“I really am happy. I couldn’t ask for a better job, or better coworkers.” Riley smiles. “When Jack’s not doing his horrible pun thing.”

“He still does that?”

“Oh yeah.” Riley grins. “He still sings bad karaoke too.” 

“And the new contractor...Mac, was it?” Diane smiles. “He’s nice.”

“Mom…” Riley scolds softly. She can tell where this is going. “We work together. I’m not even interested in another relationship right now.” She smiles. “But he is a good friend.”

“He did absolutely beautiful work on that furniture,” Mom continues. “I’m surprised he’s a tile contractor and not working with some design company.” 

“He likes working with us.” Riley takes another drink of her lemonade. They didn’t tell Mom Mac’s whole story, or even his actual name, just in case Diane had heard something about him. Someday Riley will explain it all, but right now things are complicated enough without Diane having to worry about her daughter working with an ex-con. 

“How long has he been there?” Mom asks. 

“Little over a year now.” Riley can’t believe it’s only been a year. It feels like Mac’s been part of the team forever. “I don’t know how we ever got along without him.” 

Mom’s phone buzzes. She glances at it and then sets it aside, a slight worried look crossing her face. She glances at the phone again and takes a large drink of her soda. 

“Mom?” Riley asks. “Is everything okay?” She knows she should have trusted her instincts. 

“I don’t think there’s any reason to be concerned. LA is a big city.”  _ Okay, this sounds...not great. _

“Spill.” Riley leans across the table. 

“That’s Reyna, from Portland. Apparently Elwood came back to town last week.” Riley sighs.  _ He’s probably cleaned up his act again, gotten sober for two weeks and decided he’s a fit husband and parent again.  _

“Well, he’s gonna be disappointed this time.” She’s glad Mom’s gotten out of that town, gotten a chance to cut ties completely with the past. 

“Reyna just told me he left, and she ran into someone who saw him at the gas station and he said he was going to LA.” Riley flinches. 

“Do you think he found out you got a job here?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t tell too many people. And no one I told would have let him know a damn thing about where I was; they know what he’s like.” Diane shakes her head. “Maybe it’s a coincidence.”

“Did you tell Wendy Grant?” Riley asks. Wendy’s a nice woman, but sometimes she can’t help herself when it comes to letting people know what’s going on. 

“I might have.” Diane looks stricken. “Do you think she told someone who told him?”

“It’s possible.” Riley sighs. “Just be careful, going to work, okay?” She fully intends to task “Friar” to tell her the second Elwood hits city limits, and everywhere he goes. “We’ve dealt with him before, we’ll be fine.” She reaches across the table and twists her fingers into Mom’s. “He’s no match for us.” Diane nods.  _ We’re a team. And for the first time in a long time, I can really feel it. _

* * *

JACK’S APARTMENT

MIGHT AS WELL BE HIS HOME AWAY FROM HOME AT THIS POINT

“It’s the least I can do, man, you’ve been cooking for me for a week and a half,” Jack insists, climbing the stairs and pulling his apartment key out of his pocket. Bozer insisted on doing something for Jack for coming over and keeping Mac and Mickey out of trouble while he was at work. And then there was no point to driving home every night when half his stuff is in Mac’s guest room anyway.  

Bozer chuckles. “Seriously, I don’t mind. But I mean, I’m not gonna turn down grilled steaks and a midweek Bruce Willis marathon.” Behind them, Mac’s navigating the stairs as well as he can with his knee brace still on. He’s got one that lets him move the joint now, and he’s supposed to get it off tomorrow, but it’s still not ideal. He’s lucky it was basically just a sprain. Nothing tore or dislocated, it just happened to be really painful because of some previous injury. 

“Jack, why is your door open?” Bozer asks. Jack blinks. He’s right. It is open, and there are voices coming from inside.  _ Riley’s staying with her mom, so what’s this? _

“Dispatch, I’m still waiting…” Someone says, and Jack sighs.  _ Something happened worth bringing the cops in.  _ He pushes the door open. 

“Oh man.” Definitely a robbery. “They took my TV? I just figured out how to work the remote.”

“If it’s any consolation, they left the remote,” Bozer says. “Which is weird.” Jack turns to see Mac standing in the doorway, absolutely petrified at the sight of the multiple officers milling around the room.  _ Oh kiddo. _ Of course he’s freaked out. 

“Hey, Mac, Bozer, you guys wanna wait in the car? We’ll just go out to eat I guess.” 

“No, it’s fine,” Mac steps inside, immediately gravitating to Jack’s side. “I’m okay,” he whispers. Jack shakes his head.  _ Never makes it easy on himself. Ever.  _

His next door neighbor is standing talking to one of the officers. She finishes and walks over to Jack. “I’m so sorry. I tried calling you, but it went straight to voicemail.”  _ Right. Because Mac took apart my phone when he got bored resting his knee, and he never did get around to fixing it _ . It took Jack all of five minutes to give in to those puppy eyes.  _ He just looked so dejected, sittin’ there on the couch with nothin’ to do. _

“What happened, Janese?” He asks. The door onto the fire escape is partly open and the glass has been smashed out.  _ That should have set off the security system.  _ Unless someone with Riley-level skills shut it off...

“I came in this morning to drop off your mail, and I found this. I I thought I was doing a good job checking on the place twice a day. I feel like a terrible neighbor. I'm so sorry, Jack.” 

“It's not your fault, okay?” Jack glances around.  _ Whoever did this was a pro, to shut off the system. I really hope they didn’t... _ His stash spots don’t look like they’ve been disturbed, but once the cops are gone he’s going to have to check again.  _ If it was somebody who knew what I really do... _ “Nobody saw anything out of the ordinary? 

Janese frowns. “Uh, Tommy thought he heard noises late last night.”

Bozer glances out the broken door. “Carrying a flat-screen down a fire escape; that can't be easy. Other than the TV and coffee table, what else is missing, Jack?” 

Jack glances around the room; he was so worried about whether these were pros who found his spy stuff that he wasn’t really thinking about the actual visible burglary.  _ They could have done this to cover it all up. _ He can feel that familiar knot of anxiety in his stomach.“Well, they took my Telly Savalas painting, which had cultural significance. Took all my books. My CDs.”

“Who even listens to CDs anymore?” Bozer asks. When Jack glares at him, he shrugs. “Just saying, they’d be kinda hard to re-sell. Everything’s digital now.”

“And my cigar box. No, they took my cigar box.” That’s not one of his places he stashes agency stuff, but it might as well be.  _ Dad’s dog tags were in there. _ He sighs, leaning on the bookshelf. 

“Mr. Dalton?” Someone says crisply, and he turns around to face one of the officers, a tall woman with a straight blond ponytail and sharp grey eyes. “I’d like to talk to you about this.”

_ Please tell me  _ they _ didn’t find one of the stash cubbies.  _ Jack hid them pretty well, but there’s always the chance someone’s being overzealously thorough.  _ That’s why my alarm rings through to me, not direct to 911. _ Cops showing up at agents’ houses is bad news. “Of course, Officer...Kane.” 

“It was an unusual burglary, in terms of the items stolen. The thieves left behind some fairly valuable items,” the officer says. “There’s a  _ katana _ on full display…” 

“I got it on a business trip to Japan.” He grins. “You know, the Japanese, they love their subway tile.”  _ I actually did find it in a dingy little shop over there that one of our informants ran. He swore up and down it was genuine, but I doubt it’s actually from the Golden Age of the samurai.  _ Still, it’s a nice conversation piece. And he still has half the CIA convinced he stole it off a Bruce Lee wanna-be while in a fight for his life on the top of a bullet train.  _ Slight exaggerations are the norm for this business. _

“They also left behind an authentic 1830s Texas cavalry sword.” 

“You can identify antique American weapons on sight?” Jack asks. 

“Bit of a hobby of mine,” the woman says. “There’s also the World War II Russian sniper rifle and the Vietnam era .45 Colt and CAR 15 rifle we found in your closet. And are those claymore mines stashed under your bed?” 

“The mines are replicas,” Jack says. “But the rifles are the real deal.” This woman sounds like his type.

“Whatever the case, those items are far more valuable than an Ikea coffee table and some classic rock CDs,” Kane continues. “Aside from the television, everything you say was taken was of low value.” 

“I mean, one of those Metallica CDs was signed, so…” Jack picked up that beauty at the concert last year.  _ Yeah, it was kinda pricey, but I couldn’t resist.  _ But he can see where she’s going, and he’s already there.  _ This wasn’t about a smash and grab for something they could sell. _ It’s random, disorganized snatching of whatever was handy.  _ This isn’t a normal burglary, and I don’t like it. _

“We’ll do what we can to recover your items, but at this point I think you’re better off to file an insurance report,” the woman says.  _ Low value theft, low priority case.  _ Jack gets it. The two other officers are packing up, clearly getting ready to leave. Jack decides that if his day’s already started off like this, he’s not out anything to make an attempt to salvage it.  _ I’m a silver linings kinda guy.  _ And Officer Kane recognized Dad’s guns on sight...

“You know, I’m not one to sneeze at fate. Maybe this robbery was the universe trying to bring us together? When do you get off duty?” 

“Unfortunately, I’m otherwise engaged this evening,” the woman replies. “It’s my fifteenth wedding anniversary today, and since I have a gun collection that would rival yours, I think it would be in your best interests to let this one go.” She closes the door and leaves.

“Can’t win every time, Jack,” Bozer chuckles. Jack doesn’t even dignify that with a response. Instead, he hurries to the bathroom, checking the false bottom of the plunger holder, then on to the vent over the bedroom door, and finally the section of the kitchen wall that opens when he presses on one of the tiles. Everything is still there, and apparently undisturbed.

_ This is getting weirder and weirder. _

“What was that all about?” Bozer asks.

“Stash holes. All spies have ‘em.” Jack says, glancing around. “The stuff that got taken, like you said, it would be hard to sell. So whoever did this wasn’t here for money. I was afraid they were covering up an intel grab.” 

Mac nods. “So what do you think it was?” 

“Man, I have no idea.” Mac’s phone buzzes, and he pulls it out, glancing at it. 

“Matty needs us. Um...I’ll just tell her you’re busy…”

“Nah, man, it’s fine. Let’s go save the world again.” Jack glances back once at the conspicuously bare shelf near the window. _Damn it._ _I’m sorry, Pops._

* * *

Matty shakes her head when Mac limps in with his leg still in a brace.  _ I wouldn’t do this if we had another choice of teams. _ But odds are they’ll need an expert at improvising.  _ He’s due to be out of that tomorrow, anyhow. _ She’s actually kind of surprised he’s still wearing it. Mac’s not usually one to follow medical’s instructions to the letter of the law. But he’s been acting off lately.

And not just the past couple weeks. Matty isn’t sure exactly what’s wrong, but Mac has been acting strange since he and Jack got back from that failed hunt for James.  _ That’s eating at him. _ Mac had been able to push away all that childhood trauma for a while, but now it’s coming back full force. Jack’s after action reports are sparse on the details, but she knows Mac’s been struggling. 

She really had hoped things would be better for him after they got his charges dropped.  _ And for a little while, they were. But then there was the James thing. And Murdoc. _ And there’s something else, something that’s making Mac on edge around Jack. From what she can piece together, Jack’s volunteered himself as Mac’s father figure, and just like Riley, Mac’s having a hard time processing that. _ Jack and Riley were a year and a half into the partnership before he called her his girl. And that threw her _ . Matty remembers watching a successful team come close to splintering because Riley’s issues with Elwood suddenly came front and center again.  _ She was scared to trust Jack too, started pushing him away.  _ She’s pretty sure the same thing is happening with Mac.  _ They need to sit down and talk about it together. _ She knows Mac doesn’t want to discuss this, but he has to.

She knows Riley’s been having her own problems, with Diane moving in, and trying to salvage that relationship.  _ I haven’t wanted to bother her. But I do want her to talk to Mac _ . Because this can’t keep happening. Mac and Jack are coming home from missions strung out and emotional.  _ Not only is that not safe for the mission, it’s not good for them. _

But she’s not here to mother everyone, she’s here to do a job, and right now, that’s what needs to be done. “Three months ago, a corruption scandal forced the president of Ecuador to resign. The very next day, Colonel Diego Zarate marched 4,000 troops into the capital and declared martial law.”

“It’s all over the internet,” Riley says. “There’s a ton of petitions calling for him to step down, and a bunch of social media campaigns. The hashtag “AltoZarate” was in the top ten trending on Twitter for three days.” 

Jack snorts. “I tell you what. You point me in the right direction of this Zarate, and I'll put my boot right in his butt.” His voice is angry and bitter, and Matty takes a deep breath.  _ If this is about Mac again... _ She’s seen Jack close to snapping more often than usual lately, and she can sense the latent hostility about James.  _ He wants to kill that man, and he’s been taking it out on the missions lately. _

She knows she’ll get nothing from him, but she feels obligated to try. “You seem grumpier than usual, Jack. Something you'd like to share?”

“No, I'm all good here.” 

“Okay. Seems unlikely, but whatever.”  _ Yes, I’m just going to have to have Riley do something. This can’t keep happening. _ “Now, as much as this will disappoint Jack, I'm not sending you to Ecuador to plant your boots anywhere. I'm sending you there to save democracy. Ecuador is about to hold a special election to pick their next president.”

“Let me guess,” Bozer says. “Zarate wants to be that guy, and he’ll do anything to get it. Like Joey Cardoza in the tenth grade class president elections.” Matty knows that to ask about this risks Bozer going off on a long winded story about his high school days. So she just nods, and watches Mac grimace. Clearly he remembers whatever fiasco Bozer is talking about. 

“If democracy falls in Ecuador, the entire region is in danger.” Cage is studying the screen with the knowing fascination of a woman who’s been responsible for toppling political stability. Matty appreciates her political savvy. Especially since it comes from someone who’s been on the same side as the people they’re trying to fight. 

“Unfortunately, that's correct. And our only hope in stopping Zarate and saving the country is this man.” Matty queues up a video of a political rally from three days ago. “Hector León, former Ecuadorian soldier turned opposition leader. León served as a UN peacekeeper. Iraq, Bosnia, Somalia; you name a hot spot, he's been there, and he has an impeccable service record, including honors for combat bravery for saving three injured men in his unit. When Zarate seized power, León was the first to speak out against him. Now he's the only candidate brave enough to stay in the race. León's got the people, and he's projected to win by a landslide, but only if he's still alive on election day.”

Riley nods. “Intel confirms that Zarate’s mobilized his army to try to kill him.” 

“Well, that's one way to save money on attack ads,” Bozer mumbles. 

“So far, León's done a good job of hiding from Zarate's death squads. But sadly, now he has a new problem: he's actually dying.”

Cage studies the video. “He does look pale. Sounds short of breath. Is it heart disease?”  

“Try heart failure. If he doesn't get a heart transplant in the next 48 hours, he'll die.” 

Jack frowns. “So, what do you want us to do? Find him a new heart?” 

Matty sighs. “There's a part of me that would just love to see what you would do with the marching orders, "Find me a heart." But, fortunately, Jack, I've already found one. The problem is it's not in the right place.”  _ Unfortunately, spending a few years working closely with Jack means all his terrible puns begin to rub off. _ “I found a donor heart and a surgeon in Pasto, Colombia, and I secured an operating room in Quito, Ecuador. Mac, Jack, you'll head to Colombia and escort the doctor and the heart across the border. Riley and Cage, you will slip into Ecuador, reach León, and get him to the secured hospital, where you will link up with Mac and Jack.” She glances at the team, sizing up the situation. “We do our jobs correctly, León and his new heart will become one before Zarate even finds out he's sick.”

Bozer raises his hand like he’s in a first-grade classroom. “Uh, everyone's got a job but me. You forgot to say what I'm doing.”

“You're staying home. I've got a tac team heading to Germany on another mission, and they need disguises.” 

Riley grins. “On the bright side, Boze, you won't have to witness Jack commit verbal atrocities to the Spanish language.” 

Jack protests. “Hey, I'll have you know my command of the Spanish language is  _ fantastico _ . My accent,  _ perfecto _ . And don't make me  _ enojado _ .” He growls. “You wouldn't like me when I'm  _ enojado _ .”

“You're making me  _ enojada _ right now!” Matty snaps. “Now get out of here. León's  _ corazon _ won't be transplanting itself.” 

“ _ Adios, muchacha _ .” Jack shuts the door behind him. 

Riley closes her rig and starts to follow, but Matty calls her back. “Riley?” She stops, a slightly guilty look spreading across her face. 

“If this is about Friar, Matty, I can explain…”  _ Friar? What’s up with our facial rec software? _ This is the first Matty’s heard of it, and whatever happened, Riley is going to have to confess to it. Later.

“This isn’t about Friar, Riley. It’s about Mac and Jack.” Riley looks only slightly relieved. She knows she just put her foot in her mouth, bigtime.  _ I taught her never to volunteer information when questioned. _ Apparently more than one person needs to go to spy school. 

“What about them?” Riley asks.

“You know Jack’s been trying to take over as Mac’s parental figure, right?” Riley nods. 

“He calls Mac his kid all the time. But I’m okay with it, Matty. Really. I was jealous for a while, but I know Mac needs him more than I do right now.” She glances down at her hands. “He’s still there for me when I need him, but...it’s okay, it really is.”  _ She’s just a chaos of oversharing today.  _ Something is definitely not right, because a trained agent like Riley should know better than to spill like this, even if it is just to Matty.  _ Why is my whole team choosing now to have their breakdowns?  _

“It’s not about your relationship with Jack. It’s about Mac’s.” Matty says. “He’s struggling. Like you were. And I do not want to see it go that far downhill.”  _ Both of them almost died because Riley didn’t trust Jack to come for her. _

“I’ll talk to him.” Riley nods and picks up her rig again. 

“And Riley?” She turns around one more time. Matty lets her voice soften. “Whatever’s going on with you, you know you can tell me, right? Because clearly Mac isn’t the only one with some issues around here.” Riley nods, biting her lip.

“It can wait till the op’s over.” Matty nods. She trusts Riley’s ability to know her own emotions.  _ She can keep it together in the field. _ Matty watches her leave and wonders how she ended up with this little messed up family she wouldn’t trade for anything. 

* * *

PASTO, COLOMBIA

A LONG, BUMPY RIDE FROM QUITO

Jack sighs as the truck he and Mac are in pounds through another pothole. “Today is just not my day,” he mumbles. “Get my apartment broken into and then pound a stinky-ass truck with the worst suspension I’ve ever seen through a bunch of craters in the middle of the road.” He sniffs. “Seriously, what was the last thing this truck was used for?” 

Mac sniffs. “Uh...some combination of bananas and chickens, I think.” Jack chuckles, but Mac doesn’t look like he’s in the mood to laugh. “I’m sorry about your apartment. If you hadn’t been staying over...” 

“Mac, this coulda happened any time. We’re out for days on missions every week. This has nothing to do with you.”  _ Of course he makes it his fault.  _ “And listen, it was just stuff. I can replace it. The only thing I wish they hadn’t taken was that cigar box.” He glances up at the trees flashing overhead, blinking. “My dad's dog tags were in that box. He gave them to me when he died. They meant the world to him, so now they mean the world to me.”

“I am so sorry.” Mac looks distraught.

“No, man, it's all right. Not your fault. Don't worry about it.” Jack smiles sadly. “If anything, losing ‘em’s made me think about Pops more than I have in weeks. His time in the Air Force during 'Nam. He flew 72 pararescue missions, all in active war zones, all to rescue downed pilots. My dad saved a lot of lives, man. He was a real hero.” Jack pauses and smiles, he doesn’t care if his eyes go misty. “He was my hero.”

Mac looks down at his hands, or more accurately, his watch.  _ Ouch. _ Jack figures talking about a dad who played for the law-abiding team can’t be too comfortable for the kid.  _ I could be proud of my father, he left a legacy I’m still trying to live up to. Mac is trying to live his father’s legacy down. _ “And I can't help but think that this this mission to save León is exactly the kind of thing he would've done.”

“And you don’t want to let him down.” Mac says quietly. 

“Well, it’s not really about letting him down, it’s more like following in his footsteps, you know?” Mac just shrugs slightly. He doesn’t look like that’s actually making sense, and Jack can see why. “Kiddo, I know your old man was always makin’ you prove yourself to him. Pops woulda rolled over and died before he made any kid of his feel like they weren’t worth the world to him just for being part of his life. He didn’t expect us to do anything to make him proud.” 

Mac blinks, Jack wonders if he’s on the edge of crying. “I’m glad he was a good father.” 

“Yeah, he was a good dad. The kind everyone ought to be able to have.”  

“Yeah.” Mac is nodding, clearly trying not to have another uncomfortable conversation right now. But part of what Pops taught Jack about being a parent was that sometimes you just have to talk about things you don’t want to, and that your kid doesn’t want to either. But they have to be said, because not saying them hurts more in the long run. And as much as Jack hates making the kid dredge up a painful past, he knows that if things are going to get any better, Mac has to acknowledge how awful James really was. _Not just that he was a world-class criminal. Mac has to realize that man was an abusive monster to_ him. And somehow it seems like that’s still something the kid doesn’t want to accept.

Jack can see why. He knows what it’s like to be a child and want to believe your parents can do no wrong, ever.  _ Cage was right, there’s a big part of Mac that’s still that ten-year-old kid. _

“Mac, I know you know that what James did wasn’t okay. You’re a smart kid.” Mac shrugs.

“It wasn’t that bad,” he says quietly, and Jack feels like screaming in frustration. “It wasn’t like Riley. He didn’t hit me for no reason like Elwood did.”  _ Oh, right, because it’s only being beaten up that makes it count as child abuse. _ And the way Mac says ‘didn’t hit me  _ for no reason’ _ is horrifying.  _ Not only did James hurt him, he made Mac believe he deserved it.  _

Jack can’t say Pops and Momma never gave him the paddle, but it was always for something he knew he’d done wrong. Mostly for the times he got himself in trouble and decided to lie about it to try and get out of the whole thing. Pops always told him if he’d just be honest about whatever he’d done, they could fix it, but lying hurt everybody.  _ How ironic is it that after all the times I got reminded not to lie to my family, I ended up in a profession where I lie for a living?  _  He can’t imagine what it would have been like to live in fear of coming home with an A minus on the report card. 

Just because verbal and emotional abuse haven’t left visible scars doesn’t mean they aren’t real.  _ It’s such a twisted kind of abuse, exploiting that parental authority. _ ‘Because I said so’ is a dangerous way to raise a child. And James appears to have been the master of “this is your fault, _ because I said so. _ ” 

He says the only thing that comes to mind. “You didn’t deserve it. I don’t care what he told you.” 

“He just wanted me to be able to survive,” Mac says, it’s like he heard nothing Jack just said. “Back in the woods, in Romania?” Mac continues. “I couldn’t get that fire started until I used his watch. I’m not supposed to need him to help me.” He shakes his head. “I have to be able to figure things out myself.” 

“No one needs to be perfect, kiddo. I know it probably looked like your dad was, to you, but trust me, he couldn’t possibly know everything there was to know or do everything by himself. Because the one really important thing he had to do was be a father, and he failed spectacularly at that.” He glances at Mac. “You don’t have to believe one thing he said about you.”

“I  _ know! _ ” Mac sounds frustrated. “You keep telling me the same things, over and over, and I know you’re right but nothing gets better! I  _ know _ I shouldn’t think about what James said but I can’t get him out of my head. I keep trying but something’s wrong with  _ me _ and I don’t know how to fix it.” 

_ Is he seriously blaming himself for not being able to stop blaming himself for things? Ok, that’s enough. _ Jack pulls over onto the shoulder. 

“Why are we stopping? We have to get to that hospital as fast as we can!” Mac turns, wide-eyed.

“We’re not going one mile more until you and I get something figured out,” Jack says quietly. “Now I need to know why you think that somehow this whole damn thing is your fault, when I’ve spent the past half hour telling you why it’s not.” 

“I…” Mac stops, and Jack can tell he’s genuinely at a loss. “I don’t…”

“Yeah. You can’t tell me why. And you know why that is?” Jack asks. “It’s because it’s not your fault, there is no reason to think it is, and the only reason you can’t stop blaming yourself is because that’s what James taught you.” Mac bites his lip, his eyes are shining with tears now. “The next time you want to blame yourself for something, I want you to use that big old brain of yours and ask yourself why. And if all you can come up with is that it’s  _ always _ your fault, if the only thing in there is James and what he said about you, then you take that and throw it away, because it’s wrong and it doesn’t matter. Okay?” 

Mac nods. “I think I can do that.”

“Good. Now granted, if it turns out to be ‘I broke Jack’s phone because I could’ then that  _ is _ your fault and I would like an apology,” Jack chuckles as he puts the truck back in gear. “But any parent who makes you feel guilty that you’re not a carbon copy of them...well, I think we can all be glad you’re not like James, so don’t worry about any time he said you disappointed him. It’s probably a weird kind of compliment to disappoint a guy like that.”

“Are you like your dad?” Mac asks.

“Kind of. But I’m not the same as him. I was good at working on cars with him, but I never picked up his knack for numbers. My old man could do math like it was the easiest thing in the world. And he sang like an angel. Church choir, solos...and I’ll admit it if you promise never to tell Riley I did…” He lowers his voice conspiratorially. “I can’t carry a tune in a bucket.” 

“That’s no big secret,” Mac laughs.

“I’ll just pretend you didn’t say that…” Jack says. “But Pops always used to say it takes all kinds to make a world, and he meant it. He wanted me and Laura to be the people  _ we _ were, not the people he wished we would be. ‘Cause everybody’s different and that’s okay.” 

“I just wish I could've met him.” Mac’s voice is soft. 

“Yeah, I do, too. You would've liked him. And, oh my gosh, he would've liked you.”  _ Pops would have thought that kid hung the moon. And the first time he pulled out a paperclip and started a tractor no one else could fix, he’d have flipped.  _

“He’d have loved having you in the barn when he worked on his ham radio. He always loved that thing.” Jack grins, thinking of last Christmas when Mac took apart said ham radio and got it working good as new. “As long as you didn’t rip it apart and make it into something else.” 

Mac smiles, then hands something to Jack. It’s his phone, all in one piece again. “I fixed it.”

Jack shakes his head.  _ Oh, this kid. _

* * *

Mac has always thought car rides alone with a parent are uncomfortable. It’s the spot where a lecture can be given without the awkwardness of bystanders, and there’s no way to escape.  _ You just have to sit and take it _ . He learned to hate James taking him anywhere that was more than a five minute drive, because there was sure to be some life lesson thrown at him or some failure brought up.  _ Coming home from school after I faked a fire was definitely the worst.  _ Jack isn’t James, certainly, but it doesn’t make the whole discussion they’ve just had any easier to deal with.

It feels like Nigeria all over again. Except that instead of putting that cold, awful word “slave” on the two years he spent in prison, he has to put the equally terrible one “abuse” on his entire childhood. 

If he’s being honest with himself, he’s known for a while now that that’s what he should call it.  _ But I didn’t want to feel like a victim again. _ There’d been enough of that when he let himself finally use the word ‘rape’ to think about what was happening in prison. Calling James’s abuse what it is only means that another person took advantage of him, of his inability or unwillingness to fight back. He doesn’t want to let himself go too far down that hole. There’s only darkness down there. 

_ They all want me to acknowledge what I’ve been through, but they never want to admit the truth of what it means. That I’m weak. _ Jack insists that Mac is the strongest person he knows.  _ But how can I be if I’ve been taken advantage of my whole life? _ And not just by strangers, but by his own flesh and blood?

He’s saved from any further thought about that by Jack putting on the brakes. “Hey, that’s the hospital. That’s gotta be her out front, right?”

Mac nods, seeing the woman standing nervously with a silver box in her hand. “And there’s the heart.” 

Jack pulls up to the door. “Dr. Rosa? I’m Jack Dalton, this is MacGyver, we’re from the Phoenix Foundation.” Alejandra nods and climbs in.

“Your boss told me you would be arriving in a slightly...unorthodox vehicle.” She glances around, then puts a hand to her nose. Jack rolls his eyes. Mac just grins.  _ I guess we’ve both gone nose blind at this point. _ Bozer’s going to hate putting these clothes through the laundry.  _ Maybe not as much as he hated the times I was crawling around a dumpster, though. _ There would be worse, but sometimes Mac has to give up and admit something’s not salvageable, most recently that time he was wandering around a Malaysian sewer…Chicken smell is really bearable in comparison. 

“Yeah, I’m well aware of the smell, doc.” Jack puts them in gear and pulls away. “Quito, here we come. Hey, it's gonna be a bumpy ride, Doc, so my heartfelt apologies in advance.”

It’s Alejandra’s turn to roll her eyes. “Puns, huh? He do that a lot?”

“Yeah. He thinks it lightens the mood.” Mac’s learned to actually enjoy Jack’s horrible puns.  _ I know he uses them on purpose to cheer me up, because he knows they distract me. _ And distractions are really welcome right now. 

“Oh, I know it lightens the mood.” Jack grins, then switches on his comms. “Matty, package in hand. We're on our way.” 

* * *

PHOENIX R&D

BOZER MISSES THE FIELD

Bozer is pretty sure this somehow counts as irony.  _ When we were in Nigeria, all I could think was how much safer it was back home in the lab.  _ Now that he’s in the lab, he misses the threat of imminent death.  _ It’s a much higher stakes version of working at Tony’s. _ He always hated slow days, but when they were overwhelmed with customers, he didn’t like that either. 

Even though he knows there isn’t really anything he can do, he dials the LAPD for the fifth time. The operator’s monotone voice recites the same thing he’s heard the last four times. “Please hold and someone will be with you shortly.” 

He leans his head on the desk and sighs. There’s literally nothing left for him to do. The masks are molded and painted, he’s just waiting on them to finish drying so he can add hair. He checked Ebay and CraigsList for Jack’s stolen items, and got a grand total of nothing.  _ He was right, whoever took them wasn’t after money. But if they weren’t after his information either, then what were they covering up? _ He’s gotten as far as he can on calibrating Sparky without Mac and Riley’s help. They’re still working on the kind of fine motor adjustments that need to be made for Sparky to do his job and disarm bombs. 

He doesn’t realize he left the AI on until the voice snaps him out of his thoughts. “Is this what is meant by the expression "watching paint dry"?”

Bozer jumps, then shakes his head. “Yeah. I guess sometimes it's not just an expression.”

“I find over 418,000 references to watching paint dry. All of which equate the experience to excessive boredom, yet I find this fascinating.”  _ Of course you do, I programmed you to be sensetive to the change in polymers as they dry. _ Some explosive compounds become more or less dangerous the longer they sit, and that’s a helpful piece of data for Sparky to record. 

Jill walks up, holding her jacket. She’s probably about to leave for the day. He would be if these masks weren’t a rush job. “Are you still on hold with the police? How long's it been?” 

“Almost three hours. An apartment break-in isn't exactly top priority.”

“I recommend he hang up and redial 9-1-1. A 10-72 or 10-79 would yield preferred results.” Bozer and Jill both stare at Sparky.  _ Riley, didn’t you program him with  _ logic _?  _ Bozer’s all too aware of what those codes are for. He remembers listening to the police scanner at night, wondering which of those incidents Mac and Pena were going to get to before the police did.  _ And there were more I’m sure that I never even heard about. _

“You want me to call in a bomb threat? Have you fried your circuits?”

“It would certainly guarantee an immediate response.” Bozer sighs. 

“I’m sorry you weren’t able to find out what happened.” Jill leans on the desk, glancing at Bozer’s phone where the operator is still repeating the same hold message.

“You should have seen the look on Jack's face when he realized he'd been robbed. Dude's saved my life more times than I can count. This just seemed like a way I could finally pay him back a little.” Bozer sighs. “I know what it’s like to have your place broken into.”  _ Murdoc came into our house not once but twice.  _ It’s not exactly the same, but he does understand the loss of safety.  _ You wonder when it’s going to happen again. _ And as much as he hates to even think about it, whoever did this bypassed Jack’s security system. Which is super-spy level good.  _ What if they really were there for something connected to the Phoenix, what if someone is systematically targeting the team? If they got past Jack’s security they could get past ours. _ He doesn’t think this is Murdoc’s style, but... _ Oh no. What if someone planted cameras, or bugs?  _ He can’t stop thinking about Murdoc creeping around their house at all hours, stalking Mac and taking those awful pictures.  _ What if they waited for Jack to reveal his stash locations so they could break  _ back _ in and find them? _

“Bozer? Bozer?” He realizes Jill is shaking his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Not really.” Bozer hangs up the phone. “I can’t help thinking about what Murdoc did, before he kidnapped Mac. He cased the house, he learned our routines. What if someone is trying to do that to Jack?”

“You think they broke in to place some kind of monitoring device?” Jill asks. “That sounds like the plot of a B-grade spy movie.”

“I know.” Bozer grins. “I used to write them. But hey, if I can come up with that idea, why couldn’t someone else?” 

“You do have a point.” Jill pulls off her glasses and wipes them clean. “It couldn’t hurt to just sweep the apartment for electronics.” She puts her glasses back on and glances at him. “I don’t think you’ll sleep at night unless we do, will you?”

“We?” Bozer glances at the masks. “Well, these do need four hours to dry...”

“And as head of R&D, I have permission to pull you for special projects if I feel it necessary,” Jill smirks. “I think making sure Jack isn’t being spied on is very necessary.” 

“So do I.” Bozer grabs his coat. “Hey Sparky, watch over my masks, okay?”

“I will gladly watch the paint dry.” 

Bozer follows Jill to pick up the sweeper unit, packs it into the travel box, and hopes Matty doesn’t decide to come down for a chat. 

* * *

QUITO, ECUADOR

ON THE WAY TO LEÓN’S SAFE HOUSE

Riley swipes away the text from her mom.  _ She doesn’t need to remind me she’s fine every five minutes. _ If Elwood was in the city limits by now, Friar would have alerted her. He’s taking his time, or he gave up, and Riley knows what him taking his time means. He probably found some illegal scheme and wants to get enough money to show up on their doorsteps with gifts.  _ He never learned that buying us things wasn’t going to make up for what he’d done. _

“You do realize stalling isn’t going to mean Jack doesn’t hear about Elwood?” Cage asks. 

“Yeah. But he’s got enough going on right now.” Matty was right, he and Mac are struggling. “I’ll tell him when the op’s over.”

“I know this is hard for you right now,” Sam says. “First Diane coming back into your life, now Elwood…” She glances out the window at the street. “If you need to unload, my door is always open. Figuratively. I actually have three deadbolts.” 

Riley shakes her head, chuckling. “Thank you.” She misses the days when she had a live-in psych specialist. 

“Family isn’t an easy thing.” Riley knows Sam’s opened a file on her sister.  _ If it’s going on in the Phoenix databases, I know about it. _ She also knows Cage hasn’t touched that file in two weeks.  _ She’s probably having second thoughts.  _

Riley’s about to say that the same open-door policy goes if  _ Sam _ needs someone to talk to when her rig chimes. “Okay, this is it.”

“The one with the ambulance out front?” Sam asks. 

Riley glances up, Sam isn’t joking. She can see the person being wheeled out on a stretcher, and she knows. “That's León.” She switches on comms. “Matty, we’re at León’s house, but he’s being hauled out to an ambulance.” 

Matty sighs. “Why didn’t we know about this?” Riley sighs.  _ Instead of focusing on my problems, I should have been monitoring dispatch scanners. _ She pulls up the last calls made to emergency services.

“Ten minutes ago, León collapsed in his safe house, and one of his aides called paramedics. EMS arrived five minutes later and they must have recognized León, because when they called dispatch, they referred to him by his name.” 

Cage chimes in. “So his illness is no longer a secret. Does Zarate know?”

Matty’s voice is icy. “Not only does Zarate know, but according to intel, he has troops mobilizing. If you two don't stop that ambulance before it reaches the hospital It won't be León’s heart that kills him.”

Riley winces.  _ I thought I was good to go back in the field. I should have been paying closer attention. _ She can’t deal with any of that right now. Elwood is a problem for another time. Right now, her priority has to be the mission.

“Let’s go stop that ambulance.” 

* * *

Mac piles as many crates as he can, the ones full of coffee and anything else that has a strong smell, on top of the one he stashed the heart’s container in. “Border crossing's coming up, Mac. You almost done back there?” Jack asks.

“Yeah. Just making sure the heart's well hidden. Last thing we need is a couple of drug-sniffing dogs finding it.” He really hasn’t needed to spend this much time camoflauging the heart, but the truth is he’s kind of avoiding Jack, after that conversation this morning. He knows Jack won’t bring it up with Alejandra in the truck, but he can see from the way Jack looks at him that he hasn’t forgotten. 

He knows that once this is all over, they do need to talk about it, whether he wants to or not. He’s been struggling since Azerbaijan, if he’s honest with himself.  _ Ever since Jack first called me his son, I haven’t really known how to deal with it. _ And as many times as he thinks he has a handle on it, something happens that shakes everything loose again.  _ Murdoc. Hayes nearly killing Jack. Nasha bringing up my past. _ And most recently, James getting back inside his head. He’d really thought that that was going to be a thing of the past, especially with Jack taking his place, slowly but surely. But if anything, it’s like thinking about replacing him has made the James in his head more vocal than ever. 

Alejandra seems as nervous as he is. She’s shifting in her seat and he can see her biting the corner of her mouth. “We’ve got five hours till we're there, and this heart still has 11 hours ticking on it, so we're gonna get to León with plenty of time to spare.” Mac sits down on a crate between Jack and the doctor. She doesn’t look reassured. 

“This isn't about the heart, is it?” Jack asks.  _ How does he always know what’s really wrong? _

Alejandra nods slowly. “On the night Zarate took over, my brother went to a peaceful protest and never came home. They found his body two weeks later. Zarate's police declared his death an accident, but I know it wasn't. Zarate has murdered everyone willing to stand up to him.”

“I'm sorry,” Mac whispers. He can’t help but think of Jerry Bozer, and the devastation that his death left in its wake.  _ Some people let tragedy make them stronger, and some crumble. _ He wants to be the first, but he doesn’t feel very much like it right now.  _ Jack is right, as much as I hate to admit it. I have to let them help me. _

“My brother believed León was the only one who could save our country. That's why I volunteered to save him.”

“Bravery must run in the family, then.” Jack gives her a smile. 

“Honestly, I don't feel brave right now. I'm feeling pretty terrified.” Alejandra says quietly. 

Mac nods. “A very smart person I know told me that it’s okay to admit you’re not okay, and the bravest thing you can do is tell someone how scared you are. So I think you’re doing great.” He glances at Jack and smiles when Jack does, and it feels like the tension between them is melting away, finally. 

And then they round a corner and the border crossing is dead ahead. Mac knows he’s shaking, and it looks like Alejandra is too. Jack glances at both of them. “How you doing? Just take a few deep breaths, okay? There's a lot of trade between Ecuador and Colombia, and our cover IDs are solid, all right? They'll probably just wave us right through.” He’s doing a really bad job of disguising the worry in his own voice.  _ The briefing we read on the way here said Zarate has been cracking down hard on checkpoint security. He’s suspicious of anyone entering the country before the election. He’s afraid of the people who fled into neighboring countries coming back to try and oust him from power.  _ People like Alejandra. 

Mac tries to look straight ahead, not meet anyone’s eyes.  _ Like Jack said, our cover IDs are solid. _ And then he hears the soldiers shouting at them to stop. Jack is raising his hands slowly. “Okay, okay, okay.”

The soldiers order them to drive the truck through the checkpoint to a holding yard, and then to climb out of the truck. Alejandra starts trying to reason with the group’s leader and gets frisked and shoved to the fence for her trouble, forced out of the way while the rest of the soldiers start pulling crates out of the truck.

Mac tries hard not to shiver when the men start patting him and Jack down. The rough hands on his body and the yelling in Spanish bring back a few too many memories of prison and El Noche.  _ I’m all right. Jack is here, he won’t let them hurt me. _ He closes his eyes and hopes this is over soon. 

* * *

Riley feels like hitting something in frustration. “I'm trying to hack the ambulance's Bluetooth, so I can take it over remotely, but…”

Sam’s already well aware of the problem. “But the vehicle's too old.” She’s very familiar with Riley’s tricks, hacks, and workarounds. 

“Exactly, so I'm hacking the stoplights instead.” There’s a chaos of honking, brakes screeching, and metal crunching up ahead. 

“Traffic jam?” Cage smirks. “Nice.” And then the ambulance veers off the road, bumping over the sidewalk. Sam sighs and wrenches the wheel over, following and earning several dirty looks from pedestrians. “This isn't a computer problem, this is a people problem. We've got to get ahead of them.” Riley’s already on it. 

“Take a left.” They swing into an alley, and the ambulance is coming directly at them. Cage has her foot on the gas and clearly no intention of swerving. “A game of chicken? Have you been taking lessons from Jack?”

“It's not a game. They're medics. Dedicated to saving lives. They're not gonna let anyone get hurt.” Sure enough, the ambulance hits the brakes at the same time Sam does. Riley breathes a tiny sigh of relief and hopes this is glossed over on the mission report.  _ Don’t need Jack getting ideas.  _

Sam is all business already, pulling her gun and motioning for the paramedics to leave the vehicle. “Out!  _ Fuera, por favor _ . Out. Now.” The two men follow her orders, clearly realizing it’s not wise to argue with her. She pulls open the back and Riley jumps up inside next to the confused patient. 

_ “Señor León. Mi nombre es Riley Davis _ .” Spanish is one of her best languages, she took three years of it in high school and since moving to LA she has a lot of neighbors and friends who speak it regularly. Two of the families in her apartment building are first generation immigrant and are always willing to have a conversation if one of the family members meets her on the stairway. She continues to assure a very panicky-looking León that she’s with an American agency and is here to protect him.  _ We can’t risk making his heart work any harder than it has to. _

She can hear Sam calling in to Matty. “We have León. We're five miles from the surgery center.” 

Riley has her comms off to be paying attention to León’s condition; she can’t afford to be distracted if he goes into cardiac arrest and she has to start emergency procedures. So she’s startled when Sam yells into the back. 

“Change of plans. Our surgery center is crawling with Zarate’s soldiers. Matty found a new operating room, but it's 11 miles away, and she’s sending you GPS coordinates now.” Riley glances down at her phone just as it pings. “And according to her latest intel, Mac and Jack ran into some trouble at the border.” 

“What is happening?” León asks. “Where are you taking me?”

“To a new clinic Zarate doesn’t know about yet,” Riley says. “My boss is extremely careful, she’ll make sure we know if that changes.”

“Who are these “Mac” and “Jack”?” 

Riley smiles. “They’re the rest of our team. They’re bringing your heart.” She takes a deep breath. “I know it doesn’t sound really good right now, but they’ve gotten out of tighter spots before.” She wonders what Mac is going to come up with this time. 

León glances at a clipboard and some papers next to Riley. “Would you hand me those?” 

“You really should be resting,” Riley tries to insist. 

“Please.” Riley can’t ignore the persistence in his voice. He has something he wants to do. She hands him the papers and a pen, and he starts writing rapidly, letters scrawling across the paper.

“What are you writing?” 

“The speech I was planning on delivering on election day. Just some words to encourage the people to ignore Zarate's threats, have courage, and take action to save our country. If I'm not here to deliver this speech, promise me you'll get it published for all to see so that someone else might continue the fight.” Riley nods, then squeezes his hand. 

“Of course I will. But if I know Mac, you’ll be standing on a platform saying those words yourself.” 

* * *

JACK’S APARTMENT

NOT AS EASY TO BREAK INTO AS IT LOOKED

Jill looks a little concerned when they open the door and Jack’s alarm starts beeping, but Bozer calmly punches in the word “Longhorn” and the beeping stops. Jill stares at him in shock. “You know his alarm code?”

“Well, technically he gave it to Mac, but Mac is really bad at remembering stuff like that. So it’s on a sticky note on our door.” Bozer shakes his head. His roommate is the epitome of the absent-minded professor.  _ He can remember the chemical formula for sulfuric acid, but not the safe combination. _ He wonders exactly how Mac’s weird brain works.  _ He’s more book-smart than common-sense smart, really. _

“Is that safe?”

“It’s in the code Mac developed when he and I were in high school, so yeah, I think it’s safe.” He glances around the room. “Okay, how does that sweeper work?”

He and Jill spend the next twenty minutes combing the apartment. The most dangerous things they find are an expired can of tuna fish in the cupboard and a molding jar of pickles in the fridge, a sock under the bed that smells like it’s been there since early 2016, and a set of wicked-looking tactical knives under the stack of extra towels in the bathroom.  _ Jack really doesn’t mess around. _

Jill finally switches off the machine and sits down in a chair at Jack’s counter. “There’s nothing here, Bozer.” 

“I guess that’s a good thing.” Boze doesn’t know what he’d have done if they did find a bug. He and Jill are lab techs, not detectives or super-spies.  _ What if they’d heard us looking and came and attacked us? _ He’s glad he only thought of that now. Otherwise he would have been a nervous wreck.

“So, if they weren’t here for Jack’s papers, they weren’t here to plant bugs, and they weren’t here to steal stuff for the cash, then what kind of a robbery was this?” Jill sounds like she’s at a total loss. 

But Bozer isn’t. “I think I might actually know.” He glances from the broken door to the empty TV hanger. “The neighborhood I grew up in, well, it was pretty rough.” He shakes his head. “If you weren’t with one of the gangs, you’d just get harrassed and all of them would try and recruit you. Mama always said she’d whoop my ass if I ever got mixed up in any of that, but...sometimes it seemed like that was gonna be the only way anyone was going to protect us.” He stares at the floor. “The price of getting in was to steal for them.”  _ I almost did it. Thought ripping off one of the junker cars from Weathers’s wouldn’t be that awful. _ But he couldn’t make himself do it.  _ Mama would rather we starved than accept the gangs’ blood money. _

“So you think this was some kind of rite of passage? Steal to prove you can?” Jill asks. 

“Yeah. And since whoever broke in here must have known the alarm code…” Bozer glances out the window. “Janese, Jack’s neighbor who was watching the place, has a son.” The kid is about the same age Bozer was when he got approached by the gangs.

“You think he might have done this?”

“When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,” Bozer says. “Or something like that. And in this case, I don’t think it’s even improbable.” He stands up. “Let’s go see if we’re right.” 

* * *

“Hey, Mac, you okay?” Jack asks. He doesn’t want to draw unnecessary attention to them, but he knows Mac hates getting frisked like that.  _ I never noticed how many times this job got us arrested until I started working with him.  _ Jack used to consider a patdown an inconvenience and annoying. Now it outright infuriates him.  _ I know most of the time, they don’t mean anything more than checking us for weapons. _ But he’s always afraid someone is going to take advantage of the opportunity to get their hands on Mac.

“I’m fine, Jack.”  _ Of course he says he’s fine. _ Jack can see the almost invisible shivers running through Mac’s body.  _ No matter what, everything that happened had a lasting impact. _ He just wants to get out of here and get Mac home. 

Alejandra stops talking to the captain and walks over. Jack can already tell from her face it’s bad. “They gonna let us through, or…”

“Yes, but the captain claims there's a new toll for crossing the border.” Jack’s stomach does a sickening drop before he realizes that she’s referring to the crates the men are busily loading into their own vehicles.  _ I thought they were gonna ask for her, or Mac. _ Just another thing he never really thought about until recently. 

He disguises his momentary panic with a joke. “Man, first my TV, now my heart. A guy can only take so much of this, Mac.”

Alejandra looks distraught. “We can't lose it. That’s his only chance. We need to get that crate back.”

Jack has a lot of experience in calming people who look like they’re headed for the edge of a panic attack. “Hey, hang on, now. You're showing a lot of heart, I like that.” Mac and Alejandra both roll their eyes at him. “Sorry. I had to do it.” He shrugs. “But to get back to that truck, I'm gonna have to go through four armed soldiers. I don't like the odds, but I'll do it. Just say the word.”

Mac is glancing around, and then Jack sees him pull himself a little more upright. It looks less like he’s a turtle trying to bury himself inside his shell and pretend he doesn’t exist.  _ He’s got an idea. _ Mac looks over at Jack. “We don't need our truck, we just need a distraction. And keep your eyes on that one, 'cause that's the one we're getting in.” He points to one of the border guard vehicles parked nearby. 

Mac wanders nonchalantly over to a stack of ransacked crates near the fence. Alejandra starts to follow him, but Jack pulls her back. “Here, stay back, stay back. He's up to something.”

“Is whatever he’s up to going to explode?” Alejandra asks. 

“It’s Mac, so there’s about a fifty-fifty chance you’re actually right.” 

Mac’s fiddling around with an MRE, dumping something from a bottle and the contents of the heating packet into a jug. Jack remembers Riley telling him about homemade tear gas Mac came up with in Caracas, and he wonders if this is going to be similar. He’s proven right when Mac flings the jug into the air and yells “Run,” dashing across to the pickup truck he pointed out earlier. The jug explodes, filling the air with a reddish mist, and the soldiers cough and bend over, covering their faces. Jack grabs the keys from the visor and starts the truck, driving off after the two jeeps. 

“Did you just make tear gas?” Alejandra asks. 

“Yeah, it was the best I could do on the fly.” There’s a note of pride in Mac’s voice and Jack smiles. He’s never, ever going to get tired of people being awed by seeing Mac’s genius in action. 

He can just see the two vehicles ahead of them, both covered in the same camouflage canvas. “Can either one of y'all tell me which jeep the heart's in?” Mac and Alejandra shake their heads.  _ Well, that does complicate things.  _ He wasn’t exactly looking at where the men were putting each of the crates they took. He was more concerned about them  _ not _ taking Mac. 

It’s a long shot, but maybe Matty can give them some help. He’s glad Mac fixed his phone this time. “Hey, Matty, um, yeah, it's Jack.”

Matty sighs. “Yes, Jack. I'm very familiar with the sound of your voice, especially when you're about to tell me that something's gone terribly wrong.”

“Well, kinda. See, we went through a checkpoint and Zarate's men took the heart, put it in a jeep, and drove off in a jeep, but we don't know which one, so we're kind of hoping that you…” 

Matty cuts him off there. “Are you seriously telling me that someone stole your heart?” 

“See? She does it, too. Here, Mac, take the phone. I can’t do this and drive.” Jack hands it over, realizing belatedly that he just gave Mac  _ permission _ to take his phone this time.  _ Which he’ll probably also take as permission to break it. Oh well. _ At this point, Jack’s simply accepted that he’ll probably never have a functioning phone for more than four days at a time. 

“We were kind of hoping you might be able to find the heart with some kind of sat view? It's in the back of one of the two jeeps directly in front of us, but the problem is, they look exactly the same.” 

“This was Jack’s idea, wasn’t it?” Matty’s voice is still audible, and Jack is pretty sure Mac didn’t turn on the speaker. “I'll just flip on my "find my missing heart from space" app. You know, I just downloaded it, bundled with my time travel and invisibility apps.” Jack would almost believe she has that invisibility one, she has an uncanny knack for sneaking up on people. 

“Well, that's using your little nugget.”

“Save the witty comeback, Dalton, and get that heart back, fast. If León dies, any hope of a free and democratic Ecuador dies with him.” 

“Matty, has anyone ever told you you give the greatest pep talks?” Jack asks.  _ I know this is important. But that doesn’t give me x-ray vision.  _

“Jack…” He immediately sees why Mac sounds so upset. They’ve reached an intersection, and the vehicles are splitting up. One is turning left, one is going straight. “How are we…”

Jack turns left, tires squealing. 

“How can you be sure that’s the one?” Alejandra asks. She’s sort of plastered against the window now. Unlike Mac, she didn’t automatically fasten her seatbelt when getting in the car with Jack. 

“Oh, I’m not sure. But we had to do something. Hey, just in case, Matty, track down that other jeep with one of those fancy new apps you just downloaded.” He chuckles. 

“Very clever, Jack, but I'm already on it. Now why don't you show us all some of that top-notch pursuit-driving you're always bragging about.” 

Jack really wishes he had his own car right now. “I'm trying, but this in line six ain't cranking out the horses. I need to close the distance. Hey Mac, think you can do that thing where you tear the engine apart?” That little trick worked great in Mission City. 

“Not unless one of you has some hydrogen peroxide,” Mac shrugs. “But...I might be able to slow them down.” 

“Okay, I like the sound of that.” And then Jack flinches as Mac starts kicking out the windshield. “Whoa, whoa, careful there hoss.” Mac manages to kick it to the side so they don’t run over it, then crawls over the console and starts rummaging in the back seat. Jack can hear him mumbling. “Uh...cable...yes...and that’s...oh yuck.” Mac reappears, shaking his hand and wiping it on his pants. “That was disgusting.” Jack doesn’t ask. He’s found some truly nasty things in the back seats of other people’s cars. Mac disappears again, and just in time. Clearly these guys are tired of being followed, because gunfire rakes across the front of the truck. Jack ducks and yells for Alejandra to get down.  _ Guess it’s a good thing that windshield’s gone. Wouldn’t have been able to see out of it anyway.  _ Mac crawls back into the passenger seat, holding a length of tow cable and a tire iron. 

“Sorry Jack…” He leans over in front of him to secure one end of the cable to the pickup’s frame. 

“I’m used to it.” He thinks he might be able to teach a new kind of pursuit driving course, on how to respond to your own team becoming obstacles to your vision. Mac pulls the cable taut and rests the tire iron against it. Jack really hopes Zarate’s guys don’t pick now to start shooting again. 

“Try and keep it steady,” he asks, and then pulls back the tire iron like he’s made a slingshot. It flies out and actually manages to catch in one of the wheels. There’s a horrible metallic shearing sound, tires squeal, and the jeep careens off the road. 

“Good aim, Hawkeye,” Jack chuckles as he pulls the truck up next to the ruined vehicle. 

“That’s at least better than Carl’s Jr. I guess,” Mac grins. But the cheerful mood doesn’t last long. Alejandra is digging through the crates in the back of the jeep, and sounding more and more frantic as she gets to the bottom. 

“It's not here. It's not here!” She looks up, face stricken.

“So much for going with my gut,” Jack sighs. But on the bright side, at least we know which jeep it's in.” 

* * *

When Bozer knocks on Janese’s door, it’s actually her son who answers. “Yes?”

“Why’d you do it?” Bozer asks. And he sees the same look on Tommy’s face as he knows was on his own when Mama asked him why he hadn’t been in his room one night.  _ I got as far as the parking lot of the junkyard before I turned around. _

“Just tell us where you hid it,” Jill adds. 

Bozer sighs, he already knows they’re going to have to appeal to more than just the kid’s conscience. “We have you on video, Tommy. Jack hid a drop cam in his apartment.” 

“Please don't tell my mom,” Tommy whispers. 

“Jack really didn't have a drop cam, but thanks for confessing.” Jill steps past him, into the apartment. “Now we just need to get it all back where it belongs.” Tommy leads them to his room, cheeks flushed with shame. Bozer can’t help but remember confessing to Mama where he’d been going, what he’d been about to do. But he also can’t stop remembering watching Mac get cuffed and shoved into a police car. This kid reminds him a little bit of what Mac was like back then. And he doesn’t want to see his life get wrecked too.  _ Mac’s going to spend the rest of his life paying for a mistake that wasn’t even what they claimed it was.  _

Tommy starts pulling things out of his closet, and Bozer shakes his head. He leans the Telly Savalas painting up against the wall and then picks up the cigar box. He doesn’t open it. Whatever’s in there is personal. And possibly dangerous. After finding the multiple weapons hidden around Jack’s apartment, Bozer isn’t taking chances. “You didn’t pawn any of it. So I’m guessing this was some kind of initiation?”

Tommy stares down at the floor. “There’s a group of kids. At the skate park. Always have new shoes, new boards, everything. They sort of started hanging out with me, and...it felt good to pretend I was one of them. I thought it was nice that they even bothered to talk to me, when I didn’t have anywhere near as good gear as they did. Most of the other guys usually ignore me.” He shrugs. “And then I heard them talking, about ripping off someplace, and I’d seen the story about the robbery in the paper.” He sighs. “I was gonna break it off, right then, but…”

“But you wanted to fit in.”

He nods. “And...they were good at it. They weren’t getting caught, and they were getting so much money.” Tommy shakes his head. “My mom works two jobs, she’s stressed, she’s barely making payments. They said if I could prove I was good at this, they’d give me a job. That I’d make more money in a night than Mom makes in a month, and Jack was going to be gone, so it seemed perfect.” He sighs. “I was gonna return it after I showed them the proof, I swear. I just…”

“Trust me, man, she’d rather have you staying out of trouble than all the money in the world.” Bozer shakes his head. “I know how that feels. And I know sometimes breaking the law feels like the only way to solve your problems.”  _ And look where that ended Mac. _ “But it’s not. And...I know a guy who might be able to help. Because he helped me.” 

* * *

SOMEWHERE IN ECUADOR

THIS TIME THEY’RE ON THE RIGHT ROAD

“Guys, they should be right in front of you.” Matty sounds as stressed as Mac feels.  _ If this terrible luck keeps up, León isn’t going to be the only one who needs his heart fixed.  _

“I see them. Hey Mac, you got any more tire irons back there?” 

“No. Some half empty soda cans, a couple rotten bananas...” Mac trails off. He doesn’t need to actually list all that junk when it’s not going to help them. He just can’t stop talking when he’s stressed. 

“So how are we going to stop them?” Alejandra asks. 

“Uh...give me a minute…” Mac tries to think through what they have in the truck. And then more shots rattle against the metal and Mac ducks, flinching.  _ I’m so tired of getting shot at! _ At least this time he doesn’t think they actually hit him. 

“We don’t have time for that, not with these guys trying to kill us! This time we do it my way,” Jack says. “Hang on!” And then Jack’s gunning the engine and slamming them into the side of the other vehicle in what Mac recognizes from one of his slightly terrifying pursuit driving lessons as a PIT maneuver. The jeep crashes into the underbrush and their own truck slams into a tree. Mac winces at the jarring impact; he can already feel the seatbelt bruise forming.

He stumbles out of the truck, blinking and shaking his head, but the ringing in his ears doesn’t stop. In fact, it only gets louder. 

Jack jumps out, runs over, and knocks the driver out with his own gun. He looks back at the truck where Alejandra appears to be as shook up as Mac. Mac glances at her hands. “You okay?”  _ If she so much as sprained a wrist we’re in trouble.  _ Mac can fix a sucking chest wound or drain a blood-filled lung cavity, but replacing a heart isn’t really in his set of skills. 

“I am. But the heart’s not.”

Jack takes a deep breath. “So I'm guessing that incredibly loud beeping sound's a bad thing, then?”

Alejandra rushes over to the crate and removes the heart’s container. “Heart rate's down to 41 beats per minute and dropping. The fall from the jeep must have broken the artificial pump. And without the pump, León's heart will be dead in minutes.” 

Jack sighs. “Just for freakin’ once, couldn’t we have an op that goes according to plan?” 

Mac digs through the back of both vehicles, trying to ignore the shrieking alarm coming from the box, and Alejandra’s repetition of the heartbeat count. “34 beats per minute. 32. Guys.”

“The countdown is not helping!” Jack says sharply. “Ah, damn it, I’m sorry, Doc.” Mac jumps down from the back of the jeep, wincing.  _ Ahhh, forgot about my knee.  _ He took the brace off so it wouldn’t slow him down, but now he’s forgetting it’s still healing. “Find everything you need there, hoss?” Jack asks.

“Unfortunately, no. The box is too high-tech, and as much as I love duct tape, it won’t fix a pump.” He sets down the roll of it on the tailgate and leans himself on it as well, taking some of the weight off his bad leg. 

“The pump circulates the blood, so, no pump means no blood, and no blood means León's heart dies.”  _ I may have gotten a C in biology, but that, I do know. _

“Where the hell we gonna find another pump way out here?” Jack asks.  _ Wait. We’re literally carrying three around with us. _ But there’s no guarantee any of them will work. 

“Alejandra, what's your blood type?”  

She gives him a confused stare. “Uh, A Positive.”

“I'm AB Negative, so neither of us are compatible.” He leaves off the part that it’s not safe for him to donate blood anyway because of prison; there’s a risk he’s carrying a dormant disease.  _ Everything got treated and cleared up, but they can’t guarantee I wouldn’t pass it on to someone else. _ He tries not to think too much about that. 

“If we’re talking blood, I’m a universal donor, O Neg,” Jack says. “But how’s that gonna help us fix a broken pump?” 

“Um...I have an idea, but…”

“I’m not gonna like it? Come on man, I like anything that gets us where we need to go and keeps our freedom-loving friend alive so Zarate doesn’t get to play dictator.” 

“Well, the pump in the box is beyond repair, but the pump right here is working just fine.” Mac taps Jack’s chest. “We're gonna use your heart to keep León's beating.” 

“To what? Oh, this just got really weird.”

“You’re crazy. It’ll never work,” Alejandra says. 

“Maybe not, but our alternative is doing nothing,” Mac says. “We have to try.” Jack nods. “We still need a vehicle, both of these aren’t going anywhere.” He’s already given them a slight lookover, one has a broken drivetrain and the other smashed in the radiator and fan.  _ If it had just been tires or something minor I could have stripped one truck to fix the other, but those are both too serious for me to deal with out here. _ “We passed a turnoff that looked like it led to a town, see if you can get us something.” She nods and jogs off.

“Okay, kiddo, now that she’s gone, be honest with me. Is this gonna work?” Jack asks. Mac sighs, already starting to work on the makeshift tubing they’ll need. 

“In theory, yes. Your heart and that pump do the same job, so they should be interchanegable.” He bites his lip, studying the box. “But in actuality, there’s a lot of variables. The distance from your heart to this box is a lot further than the one from the pump, so there might not be enough pressure. And I can’t guarantee that the tubing…” There are a lot of ways this could go wrong. But he has to hope it goes right. 

“It’ll be fine.” Jack’s voice is reassuring. “You’ve got this.” Mac nods.  _ I do. _

He’s just finishing attaching Jack to the heart when he hears the low hum of a motor. “We need to move, just in case it’s Zarate’s guys and not Alejandra.”  _ If it is, we don’t really stand much of a chance of hiding, but we can try. _

When a small lime-green motorcycle and its sole passenger pulls up, Mac sighs with relief and he and Jack step out of the bushes, swatting away the bugs that swarm in the shady areas. Jack proudly displays the functioning container. “Lot of people say I wear my heart on my sleeve, but this is a tad literal.”

Mac rummages through the back of the jeep for a tarp, then slits an opening in it for Jack’s head and puts it over him like a poncho to keep out the dust. “There you go.” 

Alejandra frowns, looking back at the bike. “I know it's too small to carry all three of us, but it's the only vehicle I could find.”

Mac glances from it to the ruined vehicles. “Actually, I can work with that.”  _ When we were in high school, Bozer and I found an old motorcycle at the junkyard. We fixed it all up to ride around, thought it was the coolest thing. And we made a trailer for it, and I’d use it to move heavy toolboxes and stuff across the junkyard.  _ Mr. Weathers always accused him of trying to get out of the good old-fashioned manual labor, but Mac knew the shop owner was impressed with his work.

He doesn’t have quite the selection of tools and parts here, but he does have enough to make a decent trailer. “This won’t fall apart when I sit in it, right?” Jack asks, grinning. “Hey, if I see any of Zarate's goons, I'll just put 'em under cardiac arrest.” 

Mac guns the engine, and over it he can hear Alejandra talking. “Is he really gonna do this the whole way?” 

He knows he probably shouldn’t do this, but he just can’t resist. “Well, he’s heartily enjoying it, so safe bet would be yes.”

“I'd sing you guys a song, but my heart isn't in it.”

“Oh, God,” Alejandra mumbles as they drive away.

* * *

QUITO, ECUADOR

NEW PLASTIC SURGERY CENTER THAT HOPEFULLY ZARATE HASN’T FOUND

Sam glances through the door into the waiting room. She and Riley blend in perfectly, in a couple of sets of scrubs they grabbed from a laundry room. They’ve gotten León into a hospital gown as well, and they look every inch the medical staff they’re going to need to become for this to work. 

Mac and Jack called in, they’re about an hour away so it won’t be too suspicious to bring León in now. Tying up an operating room all day would have been risky. “I’ll take care of Nurse Ratched there, you get us a room,” Sam says, glancing at the short, efficient-looking woman who appears to be the boss of the waiting room.  _ She likes being in charge.  _ Which means the best way to frazzle and distract her is to take that power away. 

Sam pushes the door open. The woman tries to stop her, but she forces her way past anyway. “What is your name? Where are your credentials?” She asks briskly. 

“Who am  _ I _ ?” the woman blusters. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“You were supposed to be informed of our arrival an hour ago.” Sam keeps up the demanding act, she can see Riley fiddling with the computers behind the desk, holding up two fingers.  _ She needs a couple more minutes. _ “Señor Rafelas did not want any complications. I assure you, he will be most displeased that you have created such confusion.”

“Confusion? You are the one who came into my hospital without any authorization!”

“As a matter of fact, we do have authorization.” Riley has magically appeared, holding out a clipboard. “Ronaldo Rafelas, scheduled an hour ago in suite three.” The woman appears less than pacified until she sees the cost of surgery at the bottom of the chart. She waves them on with a frown. 

They settle León in the room, and Riley pulls out the scribbled sheets of paper León was writing on earlier, and her rig. “There’s nothing more we can do until Mac and Jack get here. I’m going to transcribe León’s speech.”

“He’s going to live,” Sam says. “Mac and Jack are on their way with the heart, there’s still a few hours left, and it’s plenty of time.”

“I know.” Riley shakes her head. “I just need something to do.” She glances at her phone and Sam notices the small icon that means Friar is running. “I’m just going to obsess about this unless I do something else.”

“It’s going to be okay. You’re strong, Riley, you’ve stood up to him more than once.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about,” Riley says quietly. “Mom just got a chance at a fresh start, and now he’s going to come back, dragging in all that baggage.” She rubs a hand over her eyes. “I’m not going to contact him unless he’s in LA. But if Friar finds him, I’m going to tell him I want to meet with him first.”

“You’re trying to buffer. Like you did when you were a child.” Sam’s seen that natural protective instinct, the way Riley will move in front of Bozer or Mac or sometimes even her and Jack in a firefight. It’s often tempered by Jack’s even stronger need to make himself the human punching bag, but there’s no denying Riley is cut from the same cloth. “You do realize your mother isn’t your responsibility, don’t you?” She wraps a hand around Riley’s. “She has to make her own choices, and you have to make yours. If you want to head Elwood off at the pass, that’s fine, but at least remember that your mother doesn’t need to have you rescue her every time.” 

Riley nods. And then her phone pings, that little chime Sam is so familiar with. But Riley almost throws her rig across the room. “It’s him. He’s in LA.” She picks up her phone, opening the app and glancing at the picture of the man who’s stopped at a street light. 

She stands there for a long minute staring down at her phone. Then she looks up at Sam. “I’m doing this for me, not mom,” she says quietly, then dials a number. “I really hope it’s still him this time. Last time he’d lost his phone number and I got an Indonesian takeout shop in San Francisco.” 

The phone rings twice before someone answers. Sam can just barely hear the voice on the other end of the line. “Riley? What made you decide to call?”

“Elwood.” Riley’s voice is clipped. “Don’t play with me, I know you’re in LA.” 

“Listen, honey, it’s not what you think. I’m clean. I swear.”

“I don’t want to hear it.” Riley says sharply. “And I also don’t want to hear that you’re anywhere near Mom. If you try and track her down I will bust your nose. Again.” Riley’s pacing, agitated. 

“Riley, I know I messed up. A lot. But I want to fix it.” Sam doesn’t have much to go on, but she thinks he sounds honest. And sober. “I want to fix things with you and Diane.”

“Yeah. You want them to go back to the way they were. I told you, that can’t happen.”

“I know that now. Honey, I just want to talk to you.” Elwood’s voice is pleading. 

“Okay. I’ll meet you in two days. There’s a park near me, I’ll give you the address.” She sighs. “But if all you want to do is ask for money, we’re through.” 

“I promise, all I want to do is see you.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.” Riley hangs up, shaking her head. “This is how it is every single time. He cleans up his act long enough for me to think maybe this time it’s true, and then he gets drunk or arrested or roped into some con, and wants money. I don’t know why I keep giving him chances at all.”

“Because you’re a good person. And if people like you didn’t believe in giving people second chances, where would Mac and I be right now?” Sam will admit that there needs to be a breaking point. But she’s living proof that the worst humanity has to offer can change. “Whatever he does with that second chance is up to him.”  

* * *

QUITO, ECUADOR

FINALLY

Mac knows he’s getting a few strange looks when he parks the motorcycle and its makeshift trailer outside the surgery center. On the roads, it wasn’t strange to see vehicles as improvised as this, but this plastic surgery center is for people who have money. Their transportation clearly says otherwise. 

He helps Jack inside, and thanks to Alejandra offering rapid-fire explanations in Spanish, they’re able to get past the nurses in the hallway. Jack is starting to tire, he’s been singing weirdly combined Metallica and Willie Nelson for the past half hour, distinctly off key. 

When they open the door to the room Matty told them Cage and Riley had managed to get, Riley stands up and papers scatter all over the floor. “Whoa, Jack, what happened? You look really pale.” 

“I know, not my best look.” 

Mac snatches up a handful of the papers from the floor, glancing at them. He’s familiar enough with Spanish to get the gist of what this is saying. “León wrote this?” 

Riley nods. “It’s his election day speech. He wanted me to make sure it was published...in case he didn’t survive.” 

“Uh, guys, I hate to break up this heartwarming reunion, but we have a surgery to do?” Sam cuts in. Mac grins at the way she’s jumped on the pun bandwagon. 

“I’ll scrub in,” Alejandra says. “I need the rest of you to leave, the room is contaminated enough as it is.” She frowns. “I’ll need someone to assist me.”

“I can do that.” Mac may not be able to actually do the surgery, but he’s comfortable watching someone do it, he knows the basics of the procedure, and thanks to Pena, he has incredibly steady hands in a crisis situation. 

And the the whole room goes black. Mac blinks.  _ That’s not just me, is it? _

And then Jack speaks up. “Looks like somebody forgot to pay their electric bill. This is a great time for a good heart pun. Just let me think of it.” Mac can’t see him but he’s sure Jack is making that face he does when he’s thinking really hard. And then Jack’s phone rings. “Hey Mac, I kinda got my hands full with this heart, wanna get that?”

Mac answers. “Matty?” 

“I'm watching the electricity go out all over Quito. You guys still have power?” 

Mac shakes his head even though Matty can’t see it. “We're in the dark. So is the whole block.”

Riley looks up from her rig. “If the power's gone out all over, that's got to be Zarate. He can't find León so he's cutting the whole city's power, hoping to stop the surgery.” 

“Hey, Zarate cut the power so he could...So he could stay in power.” Jack chuckles, sounding a little wobbly. 

Matty sighs. “Someone help Dalton into a chair before he hurts himself. Look, the colonel is clearly willing to do anything to kill León. He's shutting down the city's power grid, and he's sending men to all the hospitals and clinics to find him.” 

“Riley, can you just, you know, boopity-boop your way in there and fix this?” Jack asks. 

“Unfortunately no. This isn’t a network problem, it’s a hardware one. They’re literally throwing the manual switches in the power stations.” Riley says, her face lit up by the glow from her computer screen. 

Alejandra switches on her phone and walks over to the bedside. “Guys, León's fading fast. I need to operate now, but I can't perform surgery without power.” 

“We have phones, with flashlights,” Jack suggests. 

“I don’t just need lights. I need all the life-support equipment. I’m not removing a splinter, I’m literally pulling out his heart.” 

“I think I might have an idea.” They still have the motorcycle outside…

And then the door slams open and several irate voices, accompanied by flashlights, cut through the darkness. “What the hell is going on in here?” Mac recognizes the voice of a nurse who was extremely reluctant to let them through. “Is that Hector León?” Mac shudders.  _ It’s over. They’re going to call Zarate’s men, and León is going to die, and so are we. _ He can’t think of any way to fix this now.  _ As soon as they tell Zarate where we are...as soon as they tell... _

_ The words we use have power. _ And they have power to heal as well as harm, to encourage people instead of tear them down. “Wait, please. Just…” Mac blinks but doesn’t step back when the nurse’s flashlight sweeps his way. “Riley, read them the speech.” 

Riley picks up the papers, holding them up to the glow of Cage’s phone. “The smallest acts of courage, when done together, can move mountains. Stand with me now, and let's build Ecuador a new future together.” She sets down the paper. “Hector León wrote this speech for the people. For you. But if he doesn’t have this surgery now, he’ll never be able to give it.” 

The flashlight lowers from Mac’s eyes and he blinks, still seeing the floating after-images of the beam. 

“What do you need us to do?” One of the nurses asks. 

Alejandra takes charge. “Scrub in the best you can. I need hands.” 

“How did you know that would work?” Riley asks, wide-eyed.

“Words have power,” Mac says quietly. He turns to Alejandra. “There should be enough pressure left in the water tanks for you to scrub in and start your prep.” 

He turns over the task of assisting to the actually clinically trained doctors and nurses, and gets to work on the thing he is qualified to fix, the motorcycle. It’s not even close to the first time he’s turned a motor into a generator, but this is the largest scale he’s ever attempted it on. 

He’s not entirely sure it’s even going to work, but when he kicks the motor into gear and the lights flicker on, he leans on the seat and sighs.  _ Maybe, just maybe, we can do this. _

* * *

Riley can only pace the halls of a clinic for so long. At least this time it isn’t Mac or Jack in that room. She feels slightly guilty for being glad about that, but not enough to actually care.  _ They’ve endured so much. It seems unfair every time they’re only given more to suffer through. _ She hates seeing any of her team in a hospital bed.

Mac’s staying with his generator, and Jack has finally been detached from the heart and dozed off in a waiting room chair.  _ He must be absolutely wrung out exhausted to have done that.  _ It’s the perfect time to talk to Mac. 

She finds him leaning against the motorcycle, a half-filled gas can next to him and his hands greasy from working on the engine. “How’s everything holding up?” She’s seen the lights flicker a few times. 

“Couple of slipped belts.” he shrugs. “Those exhaust vent fan belts weren’t really designed for this kind of use. And the motor started sputtering at one point. Fuel line got clogged up.”

Riley sniffs. The worst of the exhaust fumes are being vented out of the room, but it still smells strongly. “Mac, I think you should take a little bit of a break, okay?” He shrugs noncommittally. “You’re not gonna do anyone any good if you get carbon monoxide poisoning.” He nods, struggles stiffly to his feet, and follows her out into the hall. 

She walks until she finds a bank of windows that face Quito. It’s hard to tell tonight, with the city blacked out. She’s sure it hasn’t been this dark here in a long time.  

“Mac?” He looks up, slightly startled. “I have something to tell you...but...you have to promise me this is between us, okay?” He nods slowly. 

“Elwood, my birth father, is in LA. And I think he’s trying to reconnect with me and my mom.” Mac looks both startled and oddly apologetic. “Please let me be the one to tell Jack, though, because I don’t want him jumping in and trying to be my knight in shining armor. I’m gonna deal with it.” 

Mac nods. “You want closure.” She does, maybe not in the same way as Mac does, but the truth is, both of them are trying to stand there and look the men who failed at raising them in the eyes, and say ‘you don’t own me’. Both of them are here to prove they made something of their lives despite everything. The fact that Riley’s had to do it with Elwood multiple times makes no difference.  

“Yes. Just like you want to look James in the eyes and put the past to rest. But that’s a lot easier said than done.” Riley shakes her head. “You know why I’m okay going toe to toe with the man who made my childhood hell?” Mac shakes his head. “Because Elwood Davis is not my father. Not anymore.” She decided that a long time ago. When Jack carried her out of that black hole in Nepal, because he cared enough to come get her even when she screwed up. “Jack took his place, so now it’s easy to remember that I don’t owe that man a thing.”

Mac nods. “Jack’s everything anyone could want in a father. And I know I should be thrilled that he’s going to be there for me, but…” He leans on the windowsill, and Riley can hear his shaky breaths. “I feel like I  _ can’t _ trust him, and not because I don’t want to. It’s like something’s broken. I can fix anything, but I can’t fix  _ me _ .” 

“You’re not wrong, Mac. Something is broken. But it’s not your fault, and it never was.” Riley glances out at the dark city. “Jack told me you’re having a hard time believing what James did was abuse, that you seemed to think only things like what Elwood did to me were valid.” She swallows and looks down at her hands. “But I didn’t call what he did abuse for a long time either.” She can feel Mac’s confused stare. “I thought it had to be intentional. He hit mom when he was sober, but the only times he ever laid a hand on me, he was drunk; didn’t know what he was doing. I thought somehow, that made it okay.” She shrugs. “I know that that sounds insane to a lot of people, but I think you understand. You don’t want to admit that a parent is wrong, so the only other place to put the blame is on yourself. It’s easier to say it’s your fault than to say your father is cruel and abusive. But no matter what it is they did, whether it was cruel hands or cruel words, it was still wrong, and it still hurt us.” 

She can hear Mac shuffling uncomfortably.  _ Matty was right, I was the right person to talk to him.  _ She’s the one who can understand best that deep pain.  _ Both of us were hurt by the people we should have felt safest with. _

Mac takes a deep breath, biting his lip. “But it really doesn’t matter who broke me. I’m still broken.” Riley feels the sharp hot burn of tears in her eyes. 

“I know that’s how it probably feels right now.” She can see the mirror image of her own experience in Mac’s eyes. “Because I’ve been there too. I thought I was weak for letting Elwood ever hurt me, that there was something I should have done better. But when I was sixteen, one of my teachers handed me a flyer; he knew I came to class with bruises I tried and failed to cover up. And on the front it said ‘Support Meeting for Abuse Survivors’.” She takes a deep breath, it’s still emotional, after all these years, to talk about that moment. “It was the first time I saw us called ‘survivors’ and not ‘victims’.” Her voice shatters and she doesn’t have the ability to stop it. “You know what you said earlier? About words having power?” He nods. “That one word changed everything for me.” 

“Survivor. I like the sound of that,” Mac says quietly.

“So do I. It means I can see myself as a winner, not the loser. That in the end, I came out on top.” She’s not much of a hugger, but she gets the sense that Mac could use some reassurance right now. So she leans over and puts her arm around him, trying her best to be a little like Jack. “You’ve taken one of the worst things life can throw at you, and you made it through. And when you finally find James, you have to be able to remember that. He’s not your father anymore, that he never deserved to be, and you don’t owe him anything.” 

“Thank you.” Mac says quietly. “For telling me this.”

“No sense in you making the same mistakes I did,” she says softly. “Guess you get to make your own new ones.” He doesn’t shy away from her touch, and they stand there listening to the motorcycle’s motor putt and watching the stars come out over the darkness in the city. 

* * *

LATER

HOURS LATER

Mac’s dozing, leaning against the sputtering motorcycle, when he hears the door open. He wonders if it’s Alejandra come to tell him she’s all done. The last time he stopped by the room, one of the nurses said she was just closing León up.

It’s not Alejandra, it’s Jack. “Damn, kid, you look exhausted.”

“I’ll sleep on the flight home. I promise. How are you holding up?” Mac asks. 

“Well, I feel like I could probably cross ‘be bitten by vampire’ off the bucket list, but you know, it was for a good cause. Hey, did it actually work, or did you bleed me dry for nothing?” 

“The heart’s in León and beating strong,” Mac says. He feels completely wrung out. He couldn’t sleep, checking on the generator and having to repair it a couple times, always at the worst possible moment. He hasn’t eaten since yesterday morning, and Riley bringing him a glass of water was the first thing he’d had to drink since they crossed the border. 

“Still feel like I could sleep for a week,” Jack says, rubbing a hand over his face. “Hopefully chugging a few cans of...whatever this is helps.” He holds up an orange soda can and takes a large swig. 

Mac glances at it, then takes it from Jack and studies the label. “Actually, that’s pretty bad for you. Steak would be better, get your iron levels up.”

“Oh, man, that sounds good.” Jack grins. “As long as you’re not trying to cook it.” He puts an arm around Mac’s shoulder. “Riley said she talked to you.” Mac just nods. She packed a lot into that late-night speech.  _ She’s as good with her words as León. _ He shuffles, twisting a paperclip he found on some of the medical papers into the shape of a heart. A real heart, like the one they just managed to get to León. 

“I know that what James did was abuse.” The word tastes bitter on his tongue. “I just didn’t want to say it, because I didn’t want to think that I was just another person’s victim.” He swallows. “But then Riley said she doesn’t see it that way, that she’s a survivor. And...I really want to be able to say that too.”

“She’s right,” Jack says. “It does matter what you call it. And you are a survivor, a hundred times over. I wasn’t lying when I said you’re the strongest person I know.” Mac hears James trying to shout over that. But he drowns out the words without listening to them.  _ I am strong. I come out here and save people’s lives every day, and I don’t let anything that happened stop me. _ He doesn’t feel bad anymore for needing Jack around.  _ Maybe the real reason I’ve been scared to let him in is because I didn’t want to admit I need help sometimes. I thought if I wasn’t okay on my own, that meant I wasn’t actually okay at all. _ But that’s what James taught him, and James doesn’t matter anymore. 

“I’m sorry for being so weird about the dad thing,” Mac mumbles, shuffling his feet on the tile. 

“And I’m sorry you’re stuck with such a weird old man.” Jack grins. “Mac, we don’t really get to choose our families, not even the ones we find. It just sorta happens. And I get that it’s hard for you. But that doesn’t mean I’m gonna give up.” He rests a hand on Mac’s shoulder. “I don’t care how long you need, how often I have to remind you I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” 

“I know.” Jack’s told him that repeatedly. And the significance of that hits in a rush. This is Jack, who is willing to repeat something until Mac understands it. Mac is used to the person he calls ‘dad’ giving up on him, whether it’s as large as being abandoned without a word of explanation or as small as being unable to solve a chemical equation in his first attempt. But the one thing he knows for sure is that  _ Jack _ will never give up. “Guess you’re stuck with me, old man.” 

“Wouldn’t have it any other way. Who else could I find who will not only turn my phone into a tracking device/infrared scanner/bomb trigger, but turn my own body into a blood pump?”

“Technically it already  _ is _ a blood pump, I just sort of hijacked it.” Mac laughs.

The door opens again. It’s Alejandra, looking as exhausted as Mac feels, but also triumphant. “The surgery was a complete success, thanks to you.” 

There’s a low hum, and Mac blinks. “I think the power’s back on. Zarate probably wants to televise the election, because he’s sure he’ll win.” Jack nods. “I’m gonna go get this building back online with the power grid now.” 

Jack squeezes his shoulder gently on the way out. “Thanks for the heart to heart, kiddo.” 

* * *

Riley’s eyes feel gritty and her eyelids keep closing. She managed to catch a little sleep in one of the chairs, but she was both nervous and uncomfortable. Still, she has a feeling she’s doing better than Mac. He looks  _ terrible. _

“The surgery was a success,” Alejandra says, and her voice is so quiet that it’s almost nonexistent. She’s dragging, barely on her feet at this point. 

Sam manages to kill the vaguely celebratory mood with her typical bluntness. “Yes, but we’re too late. It’s election day and Zarate’s going to declare victory on national television because no one knows León is still alive.” 

“I think I can fix that.” Riley may not have been able to get the power grid back online, but digging through the city infrastructure did give her a backdoor into the broadcasting system. “Alejandra, is it safe for him to be sitting up and talking?”

“I don’t see why not, if he’s able to.” She shakes her head, clearly exhausted. “He came through the procedure incredibly well, for the circumstances.”

Riley walks into the room where León is resting. His eyes are closed, and for a moment she wonders if he’s asleep, but when the door clicks closed he blinks, looking up at her. “Miss Davis?”

“I hate to ask anything more of you, but we think we have a plan to make sure Zarate can’t seize power today. But we need your help.” 

“Anything to stop him. It means nothing if I live only to watch him destroy my country and my people.” León is already struggling to sit up. 

“You can rest a bit longer. We still need a few more things.” Riley searches the building with a couple of the less exhausted nurses to find a suit jacket and a dress shirt; fortunately a few of the wealthy patients here were staying overnight, and left clothes in the lockers. One businessman is about León’s size. Riley finds the real irony in recognizing the name from the briefing as one of Zarate’s main financiers. She doesn’t feel bad at all about taking those clothes. 

She watches the clock tick closer and closer to the scheduled time of Zarate’s broadcast. She won’t hack in until it begins, she doesn’t want to risk getting kicked out of the network. She fidgets, setting up her phone to capture video, watching the nurses settle León in a wheelchair and situate him in front of a window overlooking the city. 

She’s desperate enough to drink a cup of coffee one of the nurses offers her. If she was in the mood to enjoy it, she’d realize it tastes fantastic, since they’re in the heart of some of the best coffee country in the world, but all she’s concerned about right now is getting down enough caffeine to make it through this hack. Her fingers are shaking from a combination of fatigue and the coffee in her stomach as she pulls up her rig, watching the seconds tick away. 

The television in the lobby is chattering away with some newscaster, and then Zarate’s face fills the screen. He’s bragging, insisting he’s managed to scare off his last opponent.  _ Even now he refuses to admit he’s tried to kill him. _ Riley grins. It’s going to feel good to watch this dictator’s world crumble.

Her fingers have stopped shaking, as she logs into the network and superimposes her own broadcast on Zarate’s. León’s face fills the screen, his voice strong despite his recent ordeal. Riley smiles as she hears the first words of his speech to the people ring out. “ _ Mis compañeros ecuatorianos, hoy estoy ante ustedes para ofrecer una alternativa a la mano de hierro de este hombre _ .”  _ He’s asking them to exchange tyranny for freedom, to hope for a better future.  _ Riley can only hope they’ll listen. 

Jack steps up beside her. “Ooh, you hear that fire in his words? He's got that Dalton blood pumping through his veins, boy.”

Mac sighs, he’s leaning against the wall and Riley’s slightly afraid he’s going to fall over. “That's not how blood works, Jack.” His voice sounds sleepy but amused. 

Alejandra steps up to take charge of her patient the second his speech is over and Riley cuts the broadcast. León tries to argue, but she insists he return to bed. “You can’t run the country if you’re dead,” She mutters, and Riley’s vividly reminded of Jack. 

Once the woman has León sequestered back in his room, Riley meets her in the hallway. “What's next for you?”

She glances back at the room. “I think I'm gonna stay here for a while. Help León get our country back on the right track.” 

Riley nods. “Well, I'm sure he could use someone like you. Good government takes a sharp mind and a steady hand.”

“Thank you.” Riley looks out at the city again.  _ I think this country is in good hands. _

* * *

LOS ANGELES

HOME SWEET HOME

The second they reach Jack’s floor, Mac is on high alert. It sounds like there are voices coming from inside his apartment.  _ The last time that happened, we found out there was a break in. _ And Mac also remembers that they never had time to find out why. 

_ Jack thought it could have been about his real job. _ Mac really doesn’t want to find a rogue agent or an assassin in there. He steps behind Jack, who’s already pulling his gun out of his belt. 

Jack carefully unlocks and pushes open the door, coming around the corner low, gun in hand. And then he drops the weapon, clicks on the safety, and starts to laugh. “All clear, Mac. It’s just...my TV.” Mac watches the amusement turn into shock. “Hey, man, it’s all back in here? What the hell?” Mac steps up to the door as Jack walks in. Sure enough, everything is back, right down to the ostentatious Telly Savalas painting that freaked Mac out the first time he stayed over and got up in the middle of the night for a drink of water. 

“Do you think it was someone pranking you?” Mac asks.

Jack shrugs. “Maybe...guess we’ll probably never really know. Unless Sarah sends me a letter in a week.” Then he shakes his head. “Nah, holding it hostage and sending a ransom note is more her. Maybe that crazy kid from the Farm is in town…” He smirks. “Wouldn’t put something like this past Nguyen, but I thought she was on a long term in Bangladesh.” 

Mac doesn’t really know what’s going on, but he’s not going to ask.  _ Jack has some weird friends. _ He flops down on the couch; he slept the whole flight home and he’s still exhausted. His phone buzzes in his pocket, a reminder that he missed something, and he pulls it out to glance at it. 

There’s a message from Bozer, Mac must have slept through it arriving.  **Taking someone to Tony’s for a job interview. Be back around three.** He wonders who that is. Bozer’s been working at Tony’s since he was seventeen, until he joined the Phoenix, and he told Mac that Tony basically hired him to keep him out of trouble.  _ He knew how bad the gang problems were, he grew up in that neighborhood. And he would take any kid who wanted a better alternative.  _

_ Guess a lot happened while we were gone. _ He’ll ask Bozer about this when he gets home. Which reminds him...“Well, now that we’ve established there’s no one here to kill us, what did you invite me over for?” 

Jack’s standing by his bookcase, holding the cigar box and a thin metal chain in his hands. “Didn’t know if I was ever gonna see these again.” His voice is suspiciously choked. “Thought I lost you, Pops.” He hangs the chain around his neck and Mac hears the dogtags jingle. Then Jack looks up, and from the startled flinch, he actually forgot Mac was in the room. “What, kiddo? Oh right, give me a sec.” 

He hurries into the bedroom, and emerges a couple seconds later with something in his fist. “Hold out your hand.” Mac does, and he feels something metallic, warm from Jack’s grip, fall into it.  _ But he just got them back... _ and then Mac realizes the metal is too new to be Jack’s father’s. 

“What are these?” Mac asks. 

“ _ My _ dogtags. From the Sandbox.” Jack shrugs. “Hey, I ain’t waitin’ till I die to let you have ‘em.” 

“But don’t you want to keep them around?”

“What for, dude? I may be an old man, but I’m not  _ quite _ senile enough to forget my own name just yet.” Jack chuckles and presses the chain into Mac’s hands. “But you know, maybe I should get a third one made that says ‘if found, please return to’, because you have a habit of letting yourself get out of my sight, which is slightly worrying.” He shakes his head. “Remember what I said about what you gotta do when you feel like blaming yourself? The next time James tries to get inside your head, I want you to have these close enough to hold onto, to remind yourself that I’m proud of you, I’m always gonna be right here, and that no matter what other words someone tries to shove onto you, you’re always first and foremost my son.” 

Mac looks down, blinking away tears, staring at the dogtags in his hand. His eyes flick to his wrist, and he cringes.  _ Both of them left me something. But only one of them meant anything by it. _ He fumbles with the catch of his watch, pulling it off.  

“I don’t need to carry him around with me,” Mac says. “Not anymore.” He sets the watch on the table, takes the dog tags from Jack, and slips them around his neck. 

 


	8. Packing Peanuts+Fire

###  208-Packing Peanuts+Fire

THIS PARK IS NOT AS CLOSE TO RILEY’S APARTMENT AS SHE MADE IT SOUND

SHE’S NOT A SPY FOR NOTHING

Riley tugs her leather jacket a little closer around her. The mornings are getting chilly, at least for LA, and sitting on a metal bench of a picnic table doesn’t help. She watches the joggers and dog-walkers pass and taps a foot against the ground. 

There’s a text message from Jack waiting unanswered, and Riley debates replying. But if she says anything to him now, she’ll say everything.  _ He’s still recovering from being used as a heart pump. _ She’d rather not see him get into it with Elwood right now. Besides, if it comes to blows, Riley’s already proven she can handle herself. 

She sees the man approaching long before most people would, but it’s her job to notice potential threats. She waits quietly while he walks up to the table, and stands up to meet him. Matty and Sam both taught her a lot about interrogation tactics, and she’s not about to yield the position of authority. 

“Hello, Elwood.” She keeps her posture firm but her stance loose, copying Jack’s intimidating Delta mannerisms.  _ Prepared for anything from a staring match to a fistfight. _

“Riley. It’s been a while.”

“Not long enough.” Riley meets his eyes unflinchingly. “I have to admit, I’m surprised you’re sober.” 

“I guess I deserve that.” He sits down heavily. “I haven’t exactly been the person you most want to see.”

“What gave you that impression?” Riley asks, sitting down as well. “The two a.m. drunk phone calls I hung up on, or me slamming the door in your face when you turned up out of the blue and asked for a hundred bucks?”

“You sound just like him,” Elwood shakes his head. 

“Who?” But she already knows. 

“Jack. Your boss. The guy who’s been treating you like his kid for the past six years.” She can sense the faint bitterness there. 

“He’s been more of a father to me than you ever were.” She hopes Elwood isn’t observant enough to catch the faint undercurrents of pain there.  _ I miss the way things were, with us. _ When she didn’t have to think twice about taking her problems to Jack, because she was always going to have his undivided attention.  _ I know I still would, but I feel guilty. What if he’s helping me, and Mac needs something, and Jack’s already busy? _ Riley’s a level six senior Phoenix agent. She shouldn’t need anyone to hold her hand now. 

“I know. And I’m sorry for everything I put you through.”

“Who do you owe money to this time?” Riley asks.  _ I swear if you got mixed up with any of those cartels out here… _

“No one. Riley, I know I have no right to ask you to believe me, but I’m clean this time. All of it. No alcohol, no gambling, no loan sharks.”  _ My check on him did come up clean. _ As much as she hates to do it, she thinks she might have to believe him this time.  _ Until he screws it all up. _

“I agreed to this against my better judgment for one reason. To remind you to stay away from Mom.” So far he’s avoided harassing Diane, but she’s not as willing to put her foot down as Riley is. “She just got the chance to start over, and you’re not going to ruin it for her.”

“I haven’t gone near her I promise.” Elwood holds up both hands. “I know neither of you wanted to see me again.”

“So why did you come?” Riley asks. 

Elwood rubs a hand over his eyes. “Because it’s part of the program I’m in. Making amends with the people I’ve hurt. Or at the very least offering an apology.” He looks up at her, and she can’t see anything but sincerity in his eyes. “I’m not asking for anything other than a chance to prove I’m telling the truth.” Riley nods slowly. 

“Fine. But if I hear one thing from Mom about you coming around, we are done.”

“Deal.” He shifts uncomfortably, and Riley feels just as strange.  _ What is there to talk about in this kind of situation?  _ She’s never really known. She falls back on work. “So, I’m kind of equal partners with Jack in the tile company now.”

Elwood shakes his head. “You can’t con the con man, honey. I know that story’s bull.” Riley blinks. “I’m the one who first taught you how to make a front business, remember? Fake website, recorded phone answer that tells me you have a full client list and to call back in two weeks?” He shakes his head. “I’ll admit, you’ve got a great social media presence, but those photos are all stock images. Good ones, but…” He shakes his head. “Somehow, though, I think whatever you’re covering for is a little more legal these days. Jack strikes me as the ex-military type. What is it, alphabet agency?” 

Riley shakes her head. “Not everything is a con, Elwood. You just can’t see anything else.”

“Have it your way.” He shrugs. “Whatever it is, it’s treating you well.” 

As long as he’s suspicious anyway, Riley has to take the chance to ask. “Elwood, have you ever heard of a James MacGyver?”  _ He might know something. _ Mac’s investigation is going nowhere, after he found that envelope in Paris she’s heard nothing new. Elwood is a small-time petty criminal, but he knows bigger fish. That’s what’s kept him alive this long.

The look on the man’s face is one of panic and deep fear. “Riley,  _ what _ are you mixed up in?” He reaches across the table for her hand. “I know I’m not your father, I lost that right a long time ago, but please, if you’ve ever trusted me, trust me now. Stay away from that man.” His face is absolutely white. Riley’s never seen him this scared, not even when Eddie Duke knocked on their door at four a.m. and demanded the ten thousand Elwood owed him. 

“What do you know about him?”

“Riley, please. Whatever you’re doing, whatever this is, drop it now.”

“What makes him so dangerous?” She asks, fishing for anything, any possible clue. 

Elwood meets her eyes in a way he hasn’t...maybe ever. “Listen to me. James MacGyver is the most ruthless criminal I’ve ever heard of. Even the people who hire him don’t trust him. He has no loyalties, no honor, and he’s absolutely vicious if anyone gets in his way.” Elwood runs a hand over his face, looking like he’s aged ten years in the last ten seconds. “If he ever finds his son, I hate to think what they’ll be capable of.” 

“He has a son?” Riley fights to pretend she has no idea what Elwood is talking about. 

Elwood nods. “And he’s shaping up to be just like his father. Arrested a couple years ago for terrorism and murder.” Riley doesn’t have to fake her shudder this time, but she knows Elwood will misinterpret the cause.  _ It’s not because of his description of what Mac’s capable of. It’s being reminded of what happened to Mac because of that sentence. _ “Last I heard, the kid weaseled his way out of it and he’s out there somewhere.” Riley flinches.  _ Is that what everyone believes? That Mac was guilty and he somehow managed to play the system and get out? _

Elwood’s voice is shaky. “Please. Riley, whatever this is, stop digging. Because James MacGyver would kill you and everyone you love without a second thought.” 

* * *

PHOENIX LABS

CURRENTLY THE SITE OF A NAVAL ENGAGEMENT

Bozer stares at the board in front of him. “You can do this. Steady hands. Clear eyes. Full of heart. Can't nobody…”

He’s about to place his peg when he hears a voice behind him. “Bozer.” He jumps, dropping the peg and spinning around. 

“Matty? I didn’t hear you come in…”

“Bozer, when I text you, telling you to come and see me immediately, I expect that since I'm your boss, that you will come and see me immediately.”

“Sorry, Matty. My phone was on silent.” He pulls it out of his pocket. “I was just, uh, training the robot's machine learning software. I was about to win.” 

Of course Sparky chooses that moment to speak up and discredit him. “On the contrary, I was two turns away from successfully sinking your battleship for the 137th consecutive time.” 

“I’m not really concerned with your performance in a child’s game, Bozer.” Matty shakes her head. “I’m here to talk about your real-world expertise.”  _ Oh, that doesn’t sound good.  _ “We temporarily postponed your Clandestine Services training because of the Murdoc situation, but you’ll be going to the Academy for this month’s course instead.”  _ Oh right. _ He almost forgot about that, with everything else that’s been happening. 

“Classes begin tomorrow,” Matty says. “You’d better go home and pack a bag if you want to make your flight.” She leaves the room, and Bozer sighs. 

“Yay.” He picks up his unfinished work and carries it to Jill’s desk. “I guess I’m not gonna be back for a few weeks. I have to fly out for training today. Sorry I won’t be able to get these done.” 

“Don’t worry about it,” Jill says. “I’ll hand them off to the interns. And don’t worry about the training, either. Even I had to go, and I passed.” 

“Any tips?” He asks. 

“I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. Which I can. Three ways, with this stapler,” She chuckles. “Trust me. You’ll be fine. It’s just the basics, most of it is common sense stuff. The interrogation resistance training can be a little rough, but it’s not nearly as bad as CIA or anything.” She smiles. “I cry when people’s pets die,  _ in books _ , and I made it.” 

“Thanks for the pep talk.” He grins. “I’ve already survived being disavowed, getting stabbed in Phoenix’s own labs, going up against a ruthless killer on a haunted island, and almost getting blown up by a nuke  _ and _ a burning wellhead. How hard can it be?” 

* * *

SAM’S APARTMENT

THE THREE DEADBOLTS WERE NOT A LIE

“And when I told him about James, Elwood completely flipped.” Riley holds out the video from the camera she had hidden in one of the pin-on buttons on her jacket. 

“That’s definitely a man genuinely afraid for his daughter’s life.” Sam shrugs and hands it back. “But that’s no more than we already knew. James is ruthless and dangerous.” 

“But Elwood knows more than this. He just doesn’t want to tell me.” Riley sighs. “The problem is...I’m not sure it’s my place to push for answers. Not if Mac doesn’t want them.”

“You think he’s given up on the search?”

“I don’t know. He never followed up on the clue James left him in Paris. He’s not even wearing the watch anymore, Jack said he left it at his apartment when Jack gave him his...um...dogtags.” She bites her lip, looking down at the combination of coffee and almond milk Sam made for her. 

“I see.” Cage sits down, setting her own mug on the coffee table. “And I also see the unanswered text message from Jack that’s conveniently sitting up there in your notifications.”  _ Damn it, never hand an interrogation expert your phone. _ “And don’t bother lying to me and telling me you’re not just a little bit jealous.”

Riley picks at a loose thread on the couch. “It’s really not that big a deal. I’m not so insecure as to think Jack’s going to just fade out of my life and replace me with Mac.”  _ I’m not...right? _

“But you still miss the way it was when you had his undivided attention.” Sam shrugs. “I know this is hard on you, trying to figure out how you fit in when everything changed. You haven’t even told him about Elwood yet; you’ve never kept something this big from him this long.”

“I don’t need to pile anything more on him.” Riley glances at her phone so she doesn’t have to look at Sam. “Mac needs him right now.”

“So do you.” Sam’s voice is uncharacteristically gentle. “When my sister was born, I was already six. She was the miracle baby in my family, they’d tried for years for another child and had three miscarriages.” She sighs. “Everyone was so excited. All I heard about, ever, was how thrilled everyone was for my parents, that they finally had Linsey. And I felt like I didn’t matter at all. Like somehow I wasn’t good enough, they needed to replace me.”

Riley doesn’t want to admit how close to home this hits.  _ I was always the agency darling, the one with the impressive skill set. And then Mac came along and now everyone, including Jack, is always talking about what  _ he _ does.  _ Not that she can’t admit being able to disarm a bomb with a paperclip is a little more surprising and memorable than being able to hack the Pentagon. “I’m not six, though. I know what’s going on.”

“That doesn’t make it any less real.” Sam shakes her head. “Six or sixteen or twenty-six, feeling like you’ve been replaced is painful.” She stares out the window into the darkness. “Eventually, I thought I’d make them realize I was important, that I was going to run away and show them they coudn’t get along without me.” She smiles. “I got about half a mile down the road with my suitcase. First dingo howl I heard, I was climbing a peppermint bush and hoping they couldn’t jump that high.” 

“Yikes.” Riley has never heard Sam say anything to convince her that Australia is not a deathtrap. 

“And then I saw my dad, coming down the road with a shotgun in one hand and a light in the other. He heard me shut the door, and he was following me to make sure I was safe.” She smiles fondly. “He got me down out of the bush and he carried me home, and I told him everything, that I thought they didn’t like me anymore, that I thought Linsey was somehow their favorite. And he just held me a little closer and told me there was never going to be another me, and that I was still his precious little girl and nothing would change it.” 

That’s the most Riley’s ever heard Sam say about her family.  _ Guess trying to track her sister down probably dredges all this back up. _

Her phone chimes.  _ Please don’t be Jack. Not right now. _ It’s not. It’s Matty.

“We’ve got an op.” She pours her still mostly full mug down the sink and heads for the door.  _ One thing you learn fast as a spy, never, ever leave food sitting out when you leave the house _ . She came home from what was  _ supposed _ to be a two-day surveillance op only to discover that the half-finished yogurt she left on the table was turning into a passable mold culture. 

“I’ll see you in the War Room,” Cage says, grabbing her keys off the hanger by the door.

“Not if I see you first.” Riley’s already determined to make it to the Phoenix first.  _ According to sat view, there’s a shortcut that should save me three minutes… _

* * *

THE WAR ROOM

THE BEST PLACE TO PLAN FOR COVERT OPS...OR THE RISE OF THE UNDEAD

Jack raises his eyebrows, humming the  _ Jeopardy _ theme quietly. “Come on, Mac, you’re outta time. Just pick something.”

Mac frowns. “I guess I would just stick with my knife.” 

“Oh, dude. Come on, man. It's the  _ zombie apocalypse _ . That little knife ain't gonna do nothing.” He rolls his eyes. “Come on, now. You can pick anything. One thing. What is it?”

Mac just pulls out his knife and holds it up. “This thing's got me through a lot of rough situations. I'd rather just stick with what I know. And you know I’m not a gun guy.”

“They’re already dead, man, you’d be doing them a  _ favor _ killing them again. Or however that works.”

“Can’t run out of ammo with this, either.” Mac smirks. 

“All right, fine, but trust me on this, you would not survive the rise of the living dead, man.” Actually, Jack’s pretty sure out of all of them, Mac would be best equipped to navigate a post-apocalyptic world. The challenge would be keeping Mac from getting himself killed trying to save as many people as possible  _ during _ the apocalyptic scenario of choice. Including zombies. 

“What would you choose, then?”

Jack’s had plenty of time to think of his ultimate zombie defense. “Lightsaber.”

Mac groans. “You have to be clear about the boundaries! I thought we were sticking to actual real-life weapons.”

“Dude, lightsabers  _ are _ real! You just made one like a month ago!” 

“I made a very rudimentary and glitchy laser torch.”

Jack is saved from arguing that they have the ability to fine-tune Mac’s design in the labs, and that they really ought to get on that as a precaution against the legions of the undead, by Cage walking through the War Room door. “Hey. I beat Riley, right?”  _ Well, that’s a hell of an introduction. _

“What?” Mac frowns. 

“She was trying to get to Phoenix before me.”

“She lives on the other side of LA. Even if she broke every speed limit…” Jack stops. “Was she at your apartment?” Cage shrugs noncommittally, which is odd for her. “Hey, is she okay? She never answered my text about zombie weapons.” 

“She’s fine. Just wanted to hang out. Former roommate bonding time or whatever.” Sam sounds disconcertingly vague. “Zombie weapons?” She’s clearly trying to change the subject for some reason. 

“Yeah. Hey, what would you choose if the undead were taking over?”

Sam frowns, fingers tapping on her arm. “I’d have to go with a  _ katana _ .” 

“And here I thought you were gonna say razor-tipped boomerang.” Jack still thinks that would be wicked awesome. 

Sam rolls her eyes. “Only if I wanted to die when it came back.” 

“You know, I never could get the hang of one of those. You’re Aussie, you know how to throw them, right? Can you tell me what I’m doing wrong?”

“Thanks for the stereotype, Jack. But yes, I know how to throw one.” She frowns. “But I’m not sure teaching you how to use something that you could potentially knock yourself out with is a good idea.” 

“I will have you know, I have used nunchucks for over twenty years and only hit myself…” Jack trails off. He actually can’t remember how many times it was.  _ Is that because of the one where I gave myself a concussion? _

The door flies open again. “Sorry I’m late.” Riley looks flustered. “I just don’t get it! That route should have cut off three minutes…”

“You forgot to factor in making the left turn off a side street without a light.” Cage smirks. “That’s why I don’t use it myself. Got stuck there for almost ten minutes on my way in one morning.” Jack jumps when he hears Matty speak up.  _ I never even heard her come in. _ Okay, scratch everything else, she’s the one most likely to survive zombies. “Guys. If I can have your attention.” Jack looks up to see both Matty and Patty at the front of the room.  _ Oooh, whatever this is is big. _

Matty pulls up a photo-less dossier on the screen. “Meet Enzo Lemaire.” 

“Another guy who doesn't like cameras,” Riley mumbles. 

Patty flicks through to a series of partially redacted CIA reports. “Lemaire is a black market art dealer who traffics in stolen paintings, but the big issue is what he does with the profits. He funnels them to a group on the terror watch list.”  _ Well, at least this explains why Patty’s here. _ Before she joined the fledgling DXS, she worked for the CIA investigating black market art deals, as well as theft and forgery. 

“Good-looking and he creatively finances terrorism. He sounds like a real catch,” Riley says. She’s doing that fidgety thing where she twists her rings around her fingers, and he blinks when he sees the Star Wars pin on her jacket lapel.  _ That’s the one she hid a camera in, for meets with informants.  _

He’d assume she was working another of her own ops if Matty hadn’t just called her in here. It’s still odd to think she’s a fully-fledged agent capable of doing missions without any involvement from Jack. But even if she is, she usually tells him. Something isn’t right; and it’s more than just his ever-hovering worry for his kids.  _ She’s been a little off since... _ At least since Murdoc. He can’t put his finger on the problem, but there is one. And sooner or later, he needs to know what it is.

Patty paces slightly, looking up at the screen. “Lemaire was one of my few CIA assignments who managed to elude me during my entire time with the Agency. He’s paranoid and careful. And he does all of his business through one man, the Pawn.”

“And who is this Mr. The Pawn? Is that like his agent or his fence or something?” Jack asks. 

Patty shakes her head. “No, more like his authenticator. The Pawn verifies each piece of art and then selects what he sends to Lemaire. Because of this buffer, Lemaire has been able to stay hidden for years...until now.”

Matty takes over. “We recently obtained two pieces of intel. One: a way to contact the Pawn directly, and two: a way to bait Lemaire from stepping out of the shadows.” Matty pulls up a group of images on the screen. “Turns out Lemaire has a wish list of items that he would like for his personal collection. We believe that if we approach the Pawn with one of these items…”

“He’ll lead us to Lemaire,” Mac says.

“Correct. And we know where one of these items is.” Patty taps one of the images and a picture of three vaguely horse-shaped things pops into full view. Clearly the picture means something to her. “The Tower of Blue Horses. It's an important piece in the German Expressionist movement.”

“Seriously? What's important about it? Looks like some guy just painted a bunch of horses blue.” And they barely even look like horses. Jack’s niece Ella can draw more realistic horses, and she’s nine. Jack isn’t one to not enjoy art, but he likes it to be a little more...talented.  _ Those paintings that look like photographs are awesome. _

“Except that ‘some guy’ is Franz Marc.” Patty says. Jack wonders if that’s supposed to be impressive. He guesses it is. “This painting was recently found in a basement in Germany and purchased at auction for $25 million by billionaire Todor Janssens. The painting is now locked away in his private gallery at his Belgian estate.”

“So, since you're telling us this, I guess Todor turned you down cold when you asked if we could borrow his Franz Marc?” Riley asks. 

“He also refused to sell it.” Matty says. 

Cage nods. “Which is actually good for us. The art world is small. If we showed up out of the blue with an original Franz Marc, Lemaire would definitely be suspicious.”

“Okay, so if borrow and beg are out, guess that leaves us with one option.” Riley grins, and there’s the excitement Jack hasn’t seen in a while. “Steal.” 

Matty nods. “Mac and Jack will pose as art thieves, nick the Franz Marc, and deliver it to the Pawn. Then we will draw out Lemaire and finally put him away.” She glances back at the screen. “I would love to personally head this operation, but unfortunately being Oversight leaves me with some rather aggravating bureaucratic strings attached. Which is why I’m asking my best team to handle this.” 

“Nice.” Jack grins. “Let’s bounce.” He waits to walk out until Riley does, and when they step out of the room he catches her arm. “Hey kiddo, something going on?”

She looks equal parts guilty and worried. “Just family stuff.”  _ Did she and Diane have another falling out? _ “I’ve got it all sorted out.” She turns around, clearly she doesn’t want to talk about it anymore.  _ The last time she was this secretive about a problem, it was because she was going behind my back to hunt Nick down. _ They worked that out then, but this feels like the same kind of cold-shoulder shutting out. He has no idea what the problem is, but whatever it is is hitting her very close to home. 

* * *

CLANDESTINE SERVICES TRAINING CENTER

AKA SPY SCHOOL

Bozer tries not to fidget in the uncomfortably hard chair. He hasn’t been in a classroom since that six-week film school crash course. 

The woman at the front of the room reminds him of Thornton. She’s stiff and severe, hair pulled back tightly, suit pressed and perfectly creased. “Ladies and gentlemen, I'm your Clandestine Services training officer, Cassandra Glover. Over the next three weeks, you will all grow to hate me. And I want you to understand right now how deeply I do. Not. Care. I'm not here to be your friend. I'm not here to be your mommy. I am here to sharpen you into a tool the U.S. government can use.”

Bozer’s really glad Mac’s not here.  _ That’s already how he feels about himself. _ He wondered why no one ever sent Mac away for training, but now he can see why. Patty and Matty probably knew that Mac, the worst perfectionist Boze has ever met, would have worked himself to the bone, afraid to fail.  _ They knew it was better to let Jack train him one-on-one. _ Putting Mac under this much pressure would be a terrible idea. 

Glover continues, her voice cutting sharply through Bozer’s line of thought. “And everything I do that makes you hate me may one day save your life, so when I tell you to do something, you do it. Now, look to your right.” He does. And immediately homes in on the girl at the desk beside him. She’s pretty, he can just see the lines of her face. 

And then she turns and she’s looking right at him, all big brown doe eyes and a serious frown. She’s staring at him like there’s something wrong, and he wonders if he has a froth mustache from his coffee this morning.  _ Oh God, please don’t let me embarrass myself on the first day.  _

“Your other left,” She whispers, and he blinks. Apparently Glover said something he missed. He barely manages to turn before Glover speaks up again. 

“Now look at me. By the end of this course, one or both of the people next to you will no longer be here. They'll wash out, and they'll never work for a government agency again. You will train harder than you ever have before. It will not be easy, it will not be fun.” 

_ No joke. _ Nothing about the spy business is either of those. If it looks like it’s going to be, it’s actually probably worse than normal. 

“While here you will all live off-campus under a cover identity. Anywhere outside this facility, you are to maintain this cover always. No one knows what we do here, which means, if you screw up, you will not call 911. The police cannot help you. Only I can help you.”

_ Sure.  _ Bozer’s not too fond of this particular brand of arrogance.  _ I’m pretty sure we’re more than capable of helping ourselves. Or each other. _ He really hopes this isn’t going to be like high school where everyone fought to be the best and tore others apart to come out on top. _ Mac always suffered from that. _ He was too good-hearted for that kind of cut-throat competitiveness.  _ Another good reason not to send him here. _

Bozer flinches as a pile of textbooks he can barely see over is slammed down onto the desk. “You will complete all assigned work by the due date. If you fall behind, you will be sent packing with a note to your superiors detailing all the ways in which you failed. My advice? Do not fail.” 

There’s no easy introduction to the first day. They’re out on the physical fitness course before noon, and it’s punishing. But most of this is stuff Bozer did at camp as a kid. Well, they called it camp, but it was really just a renovated vacant lot in the neighborhood that an outreach group set up a ropes and rockwall course in.  _ They wanted to keep the kids busy, let out their energy constructively.  _

It’s been a while since Bozer did rope climbing or scaled a wall, but some of this is muscle memory. He knows he’ll hurt tomorrow, and he wishes he still had his calluses, but it’s not horrible. What trips him up, literally, is the tires.

He sets off the tripwire four times before he figures out how to run through them. _ This is a pointless exercise.  _ He can see how climbing up and down ropes and getting over walls is helpful, although real world walls don’t have handholds and he wishes he remembered enough of Mac’s parkour tricks to really impress the instructors. But he’s never, ever seen a tripwire that was surrounded by a row of old tires.  _ If I saw that many tires on the ground, I’d go around. _ Still, going through the course again and again is kind of humiliating. 

He singles out the girl who was at the desk next to him when he walks into the cafeteria. He’s sweaty and grimy from the outdoor course, so not the best first impression, but he figures he’d better seize the chance or he’s never going to have the nerve to talk to her. 

“Wilt Bozer.” He holds out a thankfully clean, if somewhat rope-burned, hand.

“Leanna Martin.” She raises her eyebrows, and he realizes she’s staring at the tray balanced expertly on his free hand. 

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not gonna drop it.” He does set it down on the table anyway. “I used to be able to carry four orders of the Tony’s Supreme, with fries  _ and _ drinks, in  _ each hand _ . Friday nights were crazy.”

“You worked in a restaurant?” Leanna asks.

“Yeah. Till I got recruited.” He figures telling her everything is against policy or something.

“What agency?”

He’s not going to fall for this game. “Uh-uh. You’re trying to trick me. I know we’re not supposed to tell where we’re from.” 

“I’m CIA.” She stares him dead in the eye. “We can tell people here who we really are, you know that right?”

“Phoenix Foundation.” Bozer feels slightly mortified, but better to look over-cautious than hand out information willy-nilly.  _ Everything here is supposed to be a test, right? _ Leanna gives him a curious glance. 

“I’ve heard of it. A little.” She pokes at the mashed potatoes on her plate and hisses. “Damn it.”

“What?”

“My hands.” She holds one out, and he can see that if he thought his rope burns were bad, then she’s going for a Purple Heart. “It’s been a while since I did that kind of training.”

“You were holding on too tight.” He rolls her hand over, pulling a chunk of ice out of his water glass and wrapping it in a napkin, pressing it to her hand. “Wrap it up good before you go to bed so it can’t curl into a fist in your sleep, or everything will start healing tight and you won’t be able to open it tomorrow without it bleeding.” 

“Personal experience?” She asks. He nods.  _ Not mine, but Mac’s. He was really upset and a little scared. _ At twelve, poorly healing rope burns were clearly the equivalent of lifelong maiming, in Mac’s eyes. “In any case, thank you.” 

“No problem.” He gestures to the tray he set on the table. “I kind of already claimed this spot, mind if I sit down?”

“Not at all.” He notices she’s still clutching the ice in her fist as he sits. 

* * *

SOMEWHERE OVER THE ATLANTIC

EVERYONE IS ASLEEP BUT JACK

Jack glances around the jet, smiling at the various team members sprawled out in random places. Sam is a surprising couch hog, spread out over the whole length of one. He vaguely remembers Riley complaining about that when they lived together.  _ Serves her right, she’s always been a couch stealer herself. _ She’s currently slumped over in a chair, her hair falling over her face while she snores into the table in front of her. Mac is sitting across from Jack, he was working on a paperclip sculpture of a horse, but he passed out halfway through. Jack still thinks that looks more like art than the painting they’re on their way to steal. 

He wishes  _ he _ could sleep, jet lag on top of a midnight heist is going to be rough. But he can’t stop thinking about Riley. She was acting so off this morning, and it’s normally only family that can get her that skittish. Is it just worrying that Jack’s going to confront her about hiding whatever the problem is that’s got her jumping around like a jackrabbit? 

He gets up, preparing to sit down and wait for her to wake up and talk. Riley’s phone pings, but she makes no move to grab it, still out cold in the chair. Jack can’t help but see the name of the sender.  **Elwood** . 

He sighs. Her deadbeat birth father  _ is  _ hanging around again. She doesn’t have bandaged knuckles, so he didn’t ask for money...yet. The last time he came around, she broke her hand on his face. 

He sighs. They’ve already had the ‘your family problems are my family problems’ talk a long time ago. Riley should be fine with bringing this to him.  _ Unless she thought I was gonna show up and try to deck him again. _ Come to think of it, his last encounter with Elwood was less than civil.  _ He’s lucky Riley beat him up before I got the chance. _ Maybe she just wants to spare him the bloody knuckles.

Still, it’s not like her to keep these kind of secrets. He wants to ask, wants to know what’s happened that makes this time different from all the others, but Riley doesn’t wake up until they land. And he can’t tell if she’s really asleep or if she’s been pretending for the last hour.  _ What’s going on here? _

He just got Mac to start opening up to him about what’s wrong, about his past and how trying to deal with what James did to him is affecting him.  _ Do I have to start all over with Riley too? _

* * *

SOMEWHERE IN VIRGINIA

AT LEAST IT’S A NICE NEIGHBORHOOD

Bozer is enjoying the burn of the cool air in his lungs after the day. It’s funny, but even though his muscles are aching from the training today, he still feels like he could run forever. Maybe because out here he’s doing something he’s actually good at. 

He hears footsteps behind him, and turns quickly to look before realizing it’s Leanna. 

“You’ve got some serious speed there,” She says, chuckling in an out of breath way as they stop at the corner. “Track?” 

Bozer nods. “Had to quit when I messed up my ankle real good in junior year, but…” He shrugs. He was no Usain Bolt, but he could run a pretty impressive hundred meter dash.  _ Probably saved my life on a few of these missions. _ “Let me guess, you ran all four years, probably won State.” 

“Twice, actually.” She smiles, then holds up a hand. “Thanks for the ice earlier. And the tip about wrapping them. I’m gonna do it after this.” 

He smiles. “Glad I could help. Wait, you’re not gonna get in trouble for letting me, right?”

Leanna shakes her head. “We’re allowed to help each other outside of classes. It’s rare that anyone in this profession works alone, so we have to learn to trust each other.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’ve always seen. But Glover kinda made it sound like it was gonna be some kinda crazy Hunger Games stuff.” 

Leanna actually laughs, and Bozer tries to ignore how much he likes the fact that  _ he’s _ responsible for that unrestrained joy that suddenly crosses her face. “That might actually be more fun than the fifty pages of Advanced Analytics we have to prove we took notes on tomorrow.”

Bozer nods. “I think I’d just pull a Peeta. Make myself look like a rock and wait it out till everyone else bumped each other off.” He grins. “I’m really, really good at disguises and makeup.” He glances at her. “You strike me more as the Katniss type. Get yourself a weapon and have a survival plan.” He’s noticed her organized notes, her constantly alert awareness. 

“Is this going somewhere?” she asks, and all of a sudden he realizes what he’s just done. 

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean…” he shakes his head frantically. “Just...they’re the only ones who survived so…”

“You didn’t want to compare me to the girl who ate poison berries.” She smirks. “Got it. Race you to the next corner, rock boy?” She’s already off and running, and he takes off following, hoping the cool air drains the furious heat out of his cheeks.  _ Smooth, Wilt. Now she thinks you’re being weird. _ He’s got to stop making everything a movie reference.

He doesn’t bother trying to catch up and risking another awkward interaction, so he turns the corner in the opposite direction from Leanna. He’s slowing down, letting his burning calf muscles relax before the home stretch, when he sees the guy ahead of him, walking a dog down the street.  _ Hope Penny’s doing well with Mickey. _ He already misses going home at night to Mickey’s unconditional enthusiasm.  _ He doesn’t care if we saved the world or almost burned down the lab.  _

Then the man does something truly bizarre. He reaches up and readjusts the “4-Way Stop” notice under the corner stop sign before putting his hand into the trash can beneath it, pulling something out, and walking away.

_ That’s a dead drop. _ Bozer’s seen a few of them on ops, but he saw them  _ all the time  _ back home growing up. That’s how dealers picked up their fresh stashes. Mama always said he was never supposed to take anything out of a trash can, no matter what it looked like someone threw away by mistake, and that if he saw any plastic bags full of powder or pills in one he should call the cops. 

_ Is this a drug drop? _ But whatever this guy took out was small. Bozer can’t help his curiosity.  _ This is a town full of spies, maybe this is some kind of thing they do.  _ He knows all the teachers live around here, and come to think of it, this guy does look familiar, Bozer thinks he saw him walking across the campus today. 

He knows spies sometimes like to play games to keep their skills sharp. Riley and Cage’s ongoing D&D campaigns mix a ton of real-world strategy with the fantasy settings, and he’s seen other Phoenix field teams trying to secretly prank each other. But something about this doesn’t seem like a game. 

He follows at a distance, watching the man go up to a house, furtively snapping photos of him, the house number, and the building itself, just in case. And then the man opens the garage door and Bozer stops, stunned. 

It looks like Riley’s van inside. Bank after bank of computer towers, surveillance equipment, anything and everything tech-related a spy could want. Bozer snaps a couple pictures of that as well. Something feels off about this whole thing.  _ What’s he doing with all that? Even if he is a teacher? _ And then the dog starts barking and Bozer flinches, ducking behind a bush. He scrambles away just as he sees the silhouette of the man he was following come around to his hiding place, and the streetlight glints off the cold metal of a handgun. _ What did I just walk into? _

* * *

TODOR JANSSENS’S ESTATE

THIS PLACE IS MORE SECURE THAN MATTY’S HOUSE

“All right, guys, just 15 more feet and you're past the motion sensors.” 

Jack’s arms are going numb from holding up the cloth-covered frame. “Well, this doesn't feel stupid at all.”

Mac’s own hands are starting to shake, and he’s moving even more slowly than necessary. “It's not stupid if it works.”

“Well, just 'cause it works doesn't mean I got to like it.” Jack shakes his head. They’re too slow, and he can’t see anything. If the guards show up and ambush them he has no tactical advantage.  _ I like to be able to see the problem coming. _

“The combination of a large surface area and slow movement fools the sensors into thinking that everything's fine.” Mac continues with his sciency explanation even though literally no one asked for it. Jack knows he’s nervous, so he lets it slide.  _ He doesn’t like putting himself in situations where he might get caught breaking the law. _ Jack will admit they have a rather sad track record of getting arrested on ops together. 

He tries to lighten the mood. “I feel like I'm in the world's worst ghost costume.” He breaks into a haunting, low moan that reverberates and makes Mac shake his head. 

“Shh, we don’t want them to find us.” 

Riley’s voice comes through the comms again. “Okay, guys, just through that door. Jack, hold up your motion blocker to hide Mac's movement from the sensor.”

“They're tablecloths, Nancy Drew. Stop trying to make this sound cool.” He glances at Mac, who’s picking the lock with a frown of concentration. “You're sure whoever's in the control room can't see us lugging these giant things around?”

“I looped all the camera feeds in the west wing. As far as the guards are concerned, they're looking at a bunch of empty hallways.” 

“Okay, we're in,” Mac says, pulling open the doors. 

“Hello, horses,” Jack says, walking up to the painting and looking it over. It’s not any more impressive in person.  _ I don’t see why anyone would pay fifty dollars for that. Let alone twenty-five million.  _

Riley’s still talking. “Careful. Our Belgian billionaire's alarmed every piece of artwork in there. If you don't absolutely have to touch something, don't.” 

Mac pushes Jack back from the painting. “Jack, don't touch that.”

“It won’t set it off if you’re just touching the frame,” Riley says. “This alarm system is weight-based, on the hangers.” Mac nods, then carefully pulls the painting away from the wall. 

“I know how to get past this.” Mac pulls off one of his shoes and balances it in his hand. Jack frowns. “Uh...not heavy enough, and two is too much…” He glances at Jack’s feet and Jack has the sneaking suspicion he knows how this is going to go. 

He pulls the shoe off and hands it over, muttering sarcastically the whole time. "Jack, give me your new boot, Jack, give me your cell phone. I’m just gonna save you the trouble of asking, at this point. You have zero respect for my stuff, dude.”

“Mine wouldn’t work…” Mac trails off.

“Okay, well…” He’s about to ask why in tarnation Mac needs a  _ shoe _ when he sees him glancing from the boot laces to the hanger alarm. “Oh, wait, wait, I see what you're doing, Dr. Jones. Yeah, I'm with you. Let's do it.” 

“When I say, I need you to grab that picture off there, okay?” Mac says. He’s balancing the tied shoelace in his hand, shifting from foot to foot nervously. “We only get one shot at this so we can’t screw up.” Jack nods, and grips the frame carefully. “Okay.” 

Jack pulls the frame off the wall, and he hears Mac fumbling around behind.  _ Now is not the time for the clumsy side to make an appearance. _ Mac’s a lot less accident-prone these days, but the stress of this op is getting to him. _ Most people, including me, would say this is one of the most fun ones. _ But Mac and breaking the law do not go well together. 

Jack lowers the frame to the ground with no blaring alarm. “That's it?” He asks.  

Mac nods, letting out a shaky breath of relief. “Yeah.” 

“Man, stealing modern art is easy.” Jack glances at the boot that’s replaced the painting on the wall.  _ I paid sixty bucks for that pair, I think our Belgian friend is getting the better end of the bargain.  _ “And, you know, I really think I'm starting to understand it.”

“There's more to it than just hanging a boot on a wall,” Mac chuckles. 

“You’re one to talk, I saw that pile of scrap metal you were taking over to Dawn’s.” Mac just rolls his eyes. “Guess she liked it though. She’d probably like this too, we never shared the same tastes in interior design.” He glances at Mac, who’s currently doing something to the picture frame. “Why don’t you just get your knife out and pry it outta there?”

“I can’t risk damaging the painting itself. One slip with the knife and I’ll tear it.” Jack nods. He’s passingly familiar with the correct care of fine art, given some past ops, but they do need to hurry. He sighs.  _ Not sleeping on the plane was a bad idea.  _ Plus, he’s still sort of feeling the aftereffects of Ecuador. There’s a chair near the door, probably so Janssen can sit down and admire his artwork in comfort. Jack flops down in it, and immediately an alarm begins squealing. 

Mac looks up, wide-eyed. “What did you just do?” He’s just pulling the painting out of its frame.  

“Nothing, I just sat in this chair.” 

“I thought Riley said don’t touch anything!” 

“It was just a chair, dude!”

“Get out of it!” Mac’s rolling up the painting as fast as he can.  

“Already too late, man, might as well just stay right here and take it easy.” 

“Don’t get too comfortable,” Riley says. “You’ve got a bunch of armed guards headed your way.”

Jack stands up. “Okay, fine. Actually, that wasn’t that comfortable anyway. Man this guy has impractical tastes. Horses that don’t look like horses, chairs you can’t sit in…” He shrugs. “I may not be rich but at least I can fall asleep in my La-Z-Boy.” No one is dozing off in that hard wooden thing. “It probably makes a better doorstop.” He shoves it up under the handles just as footsteps pound down the hallway. 

Mac shoves the rolled-up painting into a tube and slings it over his shoulder. “I got it. Let’s go.” Jack grabs his boot off the wall as he passes. There’s no sense in leaving it there when they’ve already set off the alarm.

There’s no back door out of the room, but since they don’t really have to avoid the sensors in the vents now, there is an air circulation system supposedly designed to keep the room at the perfect temperature and humidity for artwork.  _ Have I mentioned how much I hate traveling through ductwork?  _

Mac kicks out a grating that drops them down into a hallway. Jack can still hear the guards, but it sounds like they’re still fighting with his improvised doorstop.  _ At least the chair was good for something. _

“Okay, take a left at the end of this hall,” Riley says. Jack is about to, when he sees three more suited security guards running his direction. 

“Yeah, take a left's not really an option there, kiddo.”

“Right takes you to the east wing. I didn't prep those cameras. Security will be able to see you.”

Jack sees Mac shiver.  _ Getting arrested in a foreign country is really really low on his list of things he wants to happen again. _ Jack’s never going to forget the fear on his face when those guards in Amsterdam slammed him to the floor and started cuffing him. 

Jack shakes his head. They either take their chances there or run head on into a group of very upset guards. “We have no choice, Riles. You're just gonna have to cut the cameras.” 

“Cutting cameras means cutting comms. You'll be working in the dark.” 

“I do my best work in the dark,” Jack chuckles. 

He hears Riley groan. “Gross.” He hears keys clacking. “Cutting cameras now. Be quick.” She sounds more cool and business-like than normal and it makes him wonder even more what’s going on with Elwood.  _ Whatever it was, she probably was talking to Sam about it, that’s what they were being so weird about yesterday. _ It’s strange to think of her going to someone else first.  _ Cage is an interrogation and intel expert, maybe Riley just wanted her opinion on Elwood’s honesty. _ But Jack would be the first to tell her the man can’t ever be trusted. 

_ Maybe she doesn’t want me involved because of Diane. _ He can tell Riley’s been trying to push a reconciliation, and Jack beating up the ex-husband might set them back a little. _ Maybe I should try and talk to her again. Maybe it’s been long enough. _ But he knows if he hasn’t been able to forget her, she probably can’t forget him either. And all he really has are  _ good  _ memories. Unlike her.

He realizes he’s been running thoughtlessly, and now they’re in a dead-end hallway with a single door in front of them. He and Mac run through, and into a room with only windows looking out onto the estate. There’s nowhere else to run to. 

Mac glances around the room with a trapped-animal panic in his eyes. “Jack, grab one of those chairs, put it under the door.”

“Sure it won’t start beeping at me?” Jack asks, trying to pull Mac back from the edge. 

“Yes, these are just chairs.” Mac glances out the window, then around the room again. He starts ripping the curtains down from the windows and shredding them into a rope with his knife.

“Oooh nice.” Jack grins. “Going old school.” 

“I...uh, I don’t know.” Mac looks like he’s at a loss. “It’ll get the painting down but it won’t support our weight…” He can’t stop looking at the door. 

“Um, I got an idea.” Jack glances out the window. “But you’re probably gonna tell me it’s stupid.” He glances out the window again. “There’s a pool down there, and it always works in the movies, right?” 

“In theory, if it’s more than five feet deep, if we jump from this height…” Mac nods. He’s tying a stapler to one end of his makeshift rope, and then he flings it out the window, letting the strap of the painting’s case slide down it. 

“Okay, let’s go.” Jack pushes open the window, hesitates for a second, and then jumps. He doesn’t think he’d win any medals for his dive, but he hits the water pretty cleanly and he doesn’t slam to his death on the bottom. He feels the water roil around him as Mac lands beside him. 

Jack bobs to the surface. “Hey we lived!” He glances around him. “Hey Mac…” The kid should have come up by now.  _ He’s lighter than I am, shouldn’t have hit harder. _ And then Mac does come up, flailing and spluttering. Just as quickly, he goes under again. Jack dives for him, eyes burning from the chlorine. He spots Mac’s dark shirt and pale skin against the moonlit water and grabs him under the arms, hauling him to the surface. 

Mac isn’t thrashing or struggling as much now, and while it makes Jack’s job easier, as he hauls him to the edge of the pool and drags him out, it also terrifies him.  _ What if he somehow hit his head? _

He rolls the kid onto the bricks surrounding the pool, hauling himself up and out as well. “Mac, hey, kiddo, come on.” Mac is scarily limp. Jack rolls him to his side, and Mac suddenly starts to cough, his whole body shaking with painful heaving. Jack holds him until he’s stopped coughing and throwing up, even as lights flash on in the house behind them. He drags Mac away from the edge of the pool, behind some bushes, where it appears Mac’s rope thingy dropped the painting for them. He unties it just as someone starts pulling the cord back toward the window.  

“Wh-what happened?” Mac gasps out, his voice raw. 

“You just got yourself a nice lungful of water, there.” Jack sighs. Mac just continues to cough and shudder. “Come on, let’s get outta here.” He grabs up the painting and slings it over one shoulder, pulling Mac’s arm over his other one, and they stumble away toward the van. 

Cage pushes the door opens and practically drags them both inside as Riley starts the engine and pulls away. Jack hands over the painting case and turns his attention to Mac, who’s slumped down against the back doors, shivering. 

“Get me a blanket,” he insists. They don’t have their go-bags here in the van, so they don’t have a dry change of clothes.

Cage opens the first aid kit and pulls out a thin thermal blanket. Jack’s glad it’s cloth and somewhat soft, a space blanket might hold in more heat but the fabric will probably be more comforting. He pulls Mac up against him, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders.

“What happened?” Riley asks, from the front. She sounds worried, she probably can’t tell what state Mac’s in right now, since she’s only probably barely able to see them in the rearview. 

“We sort of took an unplanned midnight swim, and Mac swallowed half the pool.” Jack shrugs. “He’s okay.” Mac huddles a little closer to him, and Jack puts his arm around Mac’s shoulders, running his fingers through the wet, messy hair. “It’s okay, kiddo. You’re okay.” Mac nods slowly, fingers clutching Jack’s soggy shirt. “I got you.” 

* * *

SOMEWHERE IN BELGIUM

GAS STATION BATHROOMS ARE JUST AS GROSS HERE

Mac shivers. The warm air from the hand dryer feels good, but it’s only doing so much to help with his uncomfortably soggy clothing. He took everything off and wrung it out in a bathroom stall, but that only did so much good, and Mac has a severe aversion to feeling that vulnerable in a public area, even he was able to lock the door behind him and Jack stood in front of it the whole time. Mac hopes the “out of service” sign they scrawled on a paper (in three languages) and taped to the door will keep people away. Jack’s right beside him, dripping a puddle on the floor, and keeping one eye on him and one on the door, so he thinks it’s probably going to be fine. 

He’s still coughing occasionally, and his throat feels painfully raw. He doesn’t want to think about those agonizing minutes when all that was in his lungs was the heavy liquid, that felt like it was dragging him down to drown him for good in the bottom of that pool.

_ It was almost worse than El Noche. Or the waterboarding. _ Both those times, someone was actively trying to hurt him. If he could make them stop, the drowning would stop. This time, the only enemy was the water itself. _ I can see why that’s Cage’s biggest fear. _ There’s no reasoning with the water, no fighting it off. 

His mind won’t stop playing everything on repeat. Struggling against water that felt as restraining as the duct tape on his arms, feeling the liquid flooding his lungs, blurred images of El Noche and Diego flickering in front of his face.  _ Your life doesn’t actually flash before your eyes. Just your fears.  _

“Hey, kiddo, it’s alright. It’s just us. No one else is coming in here, okay?” Jack’s voice cuts through the haze of memories and Mac realizes he’s huddled up under the dryer now, the warm air has long since stopped, and he’s curled against the wall with his knees pulled to his chest. 

He blinks, shaking his head. He’s not in the Meridas’ Mexican compound or in an abandoned OPI black site, or even still underwater in that pool. He’s safe. Jack saved him. Because Jack always does. And Jack’s not going to let anyone hurt him now. 

Mac shakes his head under the dryer, trying to get some of the water out of his hair. Drops are trickling down the back of his neck and somehow that’s the thing he’s fixating on. It’s arguably worse than the wet clothes sticking to his skin. He just wants to be dry already. 

Jack chuckles. “Dude, you look like a wet puppy right now.” Mac stops shaking his head and glances up at Jack with the most insulted look he can give while he’s bent over in a bathroom with his head under the hand dryer. Jack just shrugs. “What? It’s true!” He holds up his phone. “I can take a picture and prove it.” 

Mac shakes his head, but in the space of the past thirty seconds forgot about the dryer above him, and his head collides with the metal. It doesn’t even really hurt, but he yelps more out of surprise than anything and rubs a hand over the injured spot. 

Jack grins. “See, puppy.” He holds out his phone, and Mac has to admit he does sort of look like a puppy shaking itself dry. Especially now that Jack’s dogtags have fallen out of the collar of his shirt and are hanging down in front of him. He smiles in spite of himself; Jack can always find a way to make him find the funny thing in a situation. He’s grateful for it. He knows some people think that makes Jack look like an idiot who’s not taking anything seriously enough, but Mac knows better. Jack is already tactically three steps ahead, but he knows that sometimes the biggest threat to a mission isn’t the enemy, it’s just stress. 

Mac can tell Jack acts silly to make him relax, and he appreciates it. _ I actually don’t know what I’d do without him now. _ His chatter is always a great background distraction while Mac is working on a project, and he can always find some way to jolt Mac out of impending panic attacks or just his brain spinning out of control.  _ Even if it’s because he says something so scientifically inaccurate that I feel obligated to correct him. _

To anyone else it probably looks like they sort of hate each other. But Mac knows that if the banter and teasing was gone, that would be what meant they were upset.  _ That’s what it was like before we really trusted each other. _

Something pings. “Did you send that to Riley?” Mac groans.

“No, man, would I do that?” Jack looks genuinely hurt. “That was  _ your _ phone.” 

Mac reaches up onto the top of the dryer and grabs it. “It’s Bozer. He wants to know if he can call.”

Jack shrugs. “Why not? We’re just drying out here.” He’s dumping his boots out, Mac notices that he took the one off the wall before they left.  _ Well, at least he can’t get mad at me for losing it. _ Although that’s all a sham too, just like the dumb humor.

His phone survived the drop into the pool better than  _ he _ did. He’s pretty sure the Genius Bar just automatically fits his and Jack’s phones with the most durable cases possible. “Hey Bozer, what’s going on?”

“Okay, so, it’s kind of a long story, but I was out running, and I followed this guy, and he went in his garage and there was a bunch of stuff in there like Riley has in the surveillance van.” Bozer’s doing that thing where he talks without taking a breath, and Mac hears him pause momentarily to gasp in air. “Oh, and he grabbed something out of a trash can dead drop. Like the cartels used to use. But I don’t think it was drugs.” 

“Whoa, hey, are you sure?” Mac doesn’t think Bozer is one to jump at shadows. But that whole town is supposed to be full of spy school staff. The chances that experienced operatives have missed something under their noses is pretty slim. Although Mac has to admit it’s possible.  _ Thornton said she hired me and Boze because we thought outside the box, we weren’t traditionally trained operatives so we asked a whole different set of questions, and we sometimes realized what was wrong before anyone else _ . “Are you sure it wasn’t some kind of…”

“If you say training exercise I swear I’m gonna reach through the phone and strangle you,” Bozer groans. “I thought that’s all it was. A test or some spy game. But he was acting super sketchy.”

“Listen, Boze, he’s probably a professional spy. We all act sketchy. That’s just what the job does to you after a while.” Jack shrugs, flapping his shirt under the dryer. 

“He pulled a gun,” Bozer insists. 

“So would I, if I heard someone skulking around my property.” Jack shakes his head. “Boze, every newbie starts seeing danger where it’s not. Just take a deep breath, don't get sidetracked, focus on your training, and stay out of trouble, will you?”

Mac wants to agree, but some part of him is screaming to trust his friend. He has a good nose for when something isn’t on the up and up. Bozer ID’ed Tennant masquerading as Dr. Zito a few months ago, and nearly got killed for his trouble. Mac doesn’t want to see the same thing happen here.  _ But if he takes Jack’s advice at least he’ll stay out of the line of fire, if this does turn out to be the real deal. _ “Jack’s right, man. Don’t go poking around there, okay?”

There’s a knock on the door. “Hey guys, you almost finished in here?” Cage asks. Jack looks down at his soggy shirt and sighs. 

“I guess so. Why?”

“Just got word from the Pawn. His sources confirmed our claim about stealing the painting.”

“So we get a meeting?” Mac asks. 

“We did. Riley just got us a time and a location. Barcelona, so wheels up in 20.”

Mac picks the phone up again. “Well, you heard Sam. We need to go.” 

“Okay, no problem.Good luck in Spain,” Bozer says, and Mac can hear the slightly wistful sound.  _ Yeah, he talked about wanting to see Barcelona. _ “Oh, one more thing, totally unrelated. Remember when you were thirteen, and we broke into Mrs. Vargas’s tool shed because she forgot to leave us the key so we could get the lawnmower out and do her yard? How'd you get through that giant padlock?”

“That is  _ not _ totally unrelated.” Mac bites his lip. “Boze, I’m not going to help you break into the garage of some guy who already pulled a gun on you. Just go to classes and don’t go poking around.”  _ Please, Bozer, stay out of trouble.  _ He wants to believe Boze will, but his stomach is tying itself into knots.  _ Please don’t get yourself shot. _

* * *

Bozer studies the set of lockpicking tools tucked in his pocket.  _ Can I claim this is practice? _

He knows whose place he’s breaking into, at least. He searched the campus staff database last night until he matched the photo to a name.  _ Karl Weissler. Formerly of the BND _ . Now he’s a surveillance and intel acquisition instructor at the school.  _ Which would explain all that stuff in his garage, I guess… _ But not why he was doing a late-night dead drop.

Someone clears their throat behind him and he whirls around, afraid the teacher will be standing there with his gun again. But it’s Leanna, and from the look on her face she knows exactly what he’s doing. 

“What are you doing here?” He asks, guiltily shoving the pick kit in his pocket. 

“I was up early, studying for the cryptography exam today.” She frowns. “Which you should be doing if you want to pass.”

“Oh, I learned all that in high school. Mac and I went through a code phase.” 

“Mac?”  _ Oops. _ “Is this the Mac you called last night to ask about a childhood B&E?” 

“You heard that?”

“The walls have ears in an apartment full of spies-in-training.”

Bozer shakes his head. “We’re supposed to be off the clock there!”

“Haven’t you learned anything in class? A real spy is never off the clock, Bozer.” Leanna taps her toe on the cement. “I saw you sneaking out and figured I’d take the chance to sharpen my shadowing skills.”

“Well, I’m just sharpening my lock-picking skills.”

“On someone’s house?” She frowns. “Because I don’t know about you, but breaking and entering wasn’t on my syllabus for the day’s events.”

“Remember when we were running last night?” Under any other circumstances Bozer would hope she’d forgotten all about that embarrassing encounter. But he needs to explain. “Well, when I was running I saw a guy take something out of a trash can and move the 4-Way Stop sign.” He has her attention now.

“That’s a classic dead drop.” She frowns. “Are you sure it wasn’t for some other students doing a field test?”

“He pulled a gun when he heard me wandering around. If that was part of a test, then this is the Hunger Games after all.” Leanna’s expression goes from curious to worried. “And he had a ton of surveillance stuff in his garage. High-tech.” 

“He’s probably one of the teachers or something. Everyone on the campus staff lives in this town, he’s probably just another spy.” But it sounds like she’s doing what he did last night. Trying to rationalize the totally weird.

Bozer shakes his head. “He is. And I know that should explain it, but I...Something just didn’t feel right.” He frowns. “I thought everyone was supposed to be blending in just like we are. Having a bunch of high-tech surveillance equipment in your garage isn’t really subtle.”

She nods slowly. “That’s true…But what is breaking into his garage going to accomplish?”

“He’s not the only one with surveillance equipment,” Bozer chuckles. “Phoenix R&D is working on a new and improved smart-bug that only transmits when it’s picking up voices, so it’s harder to detect with scanners.” he pulls the case out of his pocket. “I was working on it before I left, and I thought there might be boring downtime at spy school…”

“So you brought work with you.” Leanna grins. “You’re going to bug a teacher? We could get expelled for that.”

“He pulled a gun on me, and that’s what you’re worried about, Hermione?” Bozer chuckles. “Come on, it won’t be long before he wakes up.” He pulls his pick kit out again and goes to work on the lock. It takes precious long seconds before it clicks open, but at least when he’s done he can put it back and no one will know he’s been there.

He pushes the garage door open...and stops in shock. There’s nothing there. 

“Are you sure you have the right house?” Leanna asks. Bozer pulls out his phone, showing her the pictures. “Okay, it’s hard to argue with that...but maybe he was picking up some new equipment for his class and storing it here overnight before he took it to school?” 

Bozer sighs, his enthusiasm deflating. “Yeah, maybe.” Maybe Mac and Jack were right and he’s making a fool of himself jumping at shadows. But before he leaves, he tucks one of the tiny bugs into the track of the garage door. Just in case.

* * *

Morty Kendall’s voice is just as smoke-rough as Elwood remembers. “Woody? Last time I talked to you you said you were going clean. No more jobs.”

“This isn’t about a job, Morty. It’s about someone you used to work with.” Elwood doesn’t know what Riley is doing these days, not really. He knows he rattled her, blowing that fake tile business cover out of the water, but what’s hiding underneath he doesn’t know.

From the looks of Jack, and Riley’s impressive new right hook that she demonstrated so well the last time they met, it’s black ops. But her asking about MacGyver is worrying.  _ If I thought she wanted to work  _ with  _ him I’d be scared for her life. _ But he gets the feeling her job is more along the lines of hunting people like James down and putting them in little concrete boxes. _ And she wouldn’t be the first agent he’s killed to keep his freedom.  _

“I need to know everything you know about what James MacGyver is doing right now.”

“The hell do you want to know about him for, Woody?” Morty’s voice is strained. “You got a death wish?”

“No. Just want to know if I’m liable to cross paths with him.” Elwood says, hedging. He’s not going to involve Riley in this.  _ I may have been a shitty parent but I’m not going to risk her life. _ Even if she’s doing it by chasing a madman. “Trying to start over in LA, but I need to keep my nose clean and stay away from anyone from the past, ya know?”

“So you’re calling me?”

“Just to get some news, Morty.” He sighs, sitting down hard on the cheap motel bed. 

The man sounds skeptical. “James has been off my radar for years; no idea where he’s holed up these days. But his kid’s popped up again.  _ He’s _ somewhere in LA, last I heard.”

“Anything you can tell me would help.”

“Well, everything about him’s real hush-hush. Sounds like he took some kind of government deal to get out of lockup.” Morty says. “I can make some calls, ask around. I know guys who know guys, you know?” 

“Yeah, I know. Call me as soon as you get something, okay?”

“Sure thing, man. Hey, you don’t sound so good, what’s going on?”

“Just trying to kick a lot of habits at once. Cravings are killer, you know?” He tries to laugh it off, but he knows Morty won’t be fooled.  _ It doesn’t matter. As long as he finds out what I need to know. _

The picture that Morty’s information is painting is a scary one.  _ Angus MacGyver took some kind of government deal. Riley more than likely works for a shadow agency.  _ If it’s the same one, he doesn’t like where this is going. _ Kid walks, on heavy charges, and then gets a government agency to do the dirty work of finding the man he wants to team up with. _ Elwood wants to believe Riley wouldn’t let a criminal like that manipulate her, but if Angus is anything like his father, he’s a cunning con artist as well as a dangerous killer. He might have convinced someone that he could help them take his father down, if they could find him. 

He hopes it’s all coincidence. He hopes Riley takes his advice and stays far away from the MacGyver family in general. But the Davises have never stayed away from trouble, and Elwood doesn’t think Riley’s about to break that pattern. 

* * *

LAS RAMBLAS

THIS ISN’T ACTUALLY A VAPE SHOP

Jack looks up at the colorful shop entrance. “This is where our criminal mastermind works?” He shrugs, pushes open the door, and raises his eyebrows when the jingling bell brings two muscle-bound bouncer types out of the back. 

“We have an appointment?” He says, warily. The men step forward and begin patting both him and Mac down.

“Hey, hey, easy with the hands TSA.” Jack snaps. Mac’s been freaked out enough on this mission already. Jack can tell he’s holding himself stiffly, breathing shallowly. Thankfully, it looks like the only thing these men are interested in is making sure Mac and Jack aren’t here to pop off their boss. 

Once they’re satisfied that the two aren’t carrying weapons, one of the men buzzes open the back door and lets them in, down a bare hallway to a small back room. 

A man leaning over a table glances up at both of them, then at the tube slung over Mac’s shoulder. “You must be the Pawn,” Jack says. The man doesn’t answer him. He just takes the painting from Mac, opens the case, and pulls it out. “Not much of a talker, huh?”

The man glares pointedly at where Jack has his elbows on the table. “Don't lean on that.”

“You sound like my mother,” Jack snarks, and the Pawn glares at him before unrolling the painting and spreading it out on the tabletop. 

“Impressive. You avoided damaging the painting when you removed it from the frame.”

“Yeah, well, my guy’s real good at that,” Jack says, nodding to Mac. There’s no way they’re going to buy him as the slick-fingered thief, but Mac looks the part. The Pawn picks up the painting and walks toward what looks like a copy machine. Jack frowns. “Easy with the merch there, pal. You break it, you bought it. You know what I mean?” He watches the man slide the painting inside. “What is that thing, anyway?”

“Just another verification technique.” The Pawn points to a screen on the wall, where there’s now an image of the painting projected. “Forgers will copy the final version of a painting, but they seldom bother with duplicating the early sketches or paintings hidden underneath.” He points to the screen again, and now Jack can see another layer, that looks like a pencil sketch, a little different than the actual original. “But you, gentlemen, appear to be in possession of an authentic Franz Marc. My employer will be very happy.” 

Mac smiles, a little nervously but Jack’s well aware the kid’s smile can make just about anyone trust him. “Well, making him happy is the goal. We're hoping this is the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship.”

The Pawn holds up the painting again. “I have been authorized to offer you seven million.”

Jack laughs. “When it went for twenty-five at auction?” He shakes his head. “Don’t think I don’t know a rip-off when I see one.” He shrugs. “But since you’re already planning to underpay us for our time and effort, what say we cut a new deal?”

The Pawn looks a little disconcerted. Jack nudges Mac to take over.  _ People trust him more than me. _ Mac just  _ looks _ incapable of pulling something underhanded. 

“We’re willing to hand this over for free.  _ If  _ we can get a face-to-face meeting with Lemaire.” 

The Pawn laughs. “The art world is very small, gentlemen. And none of my friends or associates have ever heard anything about you until you acquired this painting.” 

Mac doesn’t hesitate. “Well, until now, our operation has serviced a very small, select group of clients. We just want to, um, add Lemaire to the guest list, so to speak.” He smiles again, and Jack thinks if anyone’s immune to that they should have their pulse checked. 

It seems the Pawn is just as susceptible as everyone else to Mac’s apparently guile-less nature. “Well, I will pass your proposal along to Mr. Lemaire, let him decide.” He hands back the painting. “We'll be in touch.”

Jack nods, and he and Mac walk out with the painting. 

“Well, that could've gone better,” Cage says once they’re in the van and on the road. 

“What are you talking about? We nailed it.” Jack’s not sure he’s  _ that _ confident, but the guy did say he was going to work on it.  _ And if Lemaire wants this monstrosity so bad...well, I guess he’ll take the bait.  _ “The Pawn's setting up a meeting with Lemaire as we speak.”

“From what I heard, all we know for certain is that the Pawn can't be trusted.” Cage frowns. “Something wasn’t right.”

“He’s a crook, of course something wasn’t right,” Jack says. “Hey, should we call in and let them know back home that phase two is complete?”

“Already doing that,” Riley says. “Oh, Patty?” Jack can’t hear what’s happening on the other end of the line, but he can guess it’s the usual questions. “Yes, I’m uploading comm data now.” She stops, and Jack can see her face go stiff in the rearview mirror. “Wait. Jack. Did he do an authentication where he put the painting in a scanner?” 

“Why?” Jack asks, with the sudden sinking feeling that they’ve made a horrible mistake. “Was that a bad thing?”

“It’s a con. One of the Pawn’s favorites, according to Patty.” Cage hits the brakes and the van screeches to a stop, horns blaring behind them. “The painting we have is a fake.”

Jack looks back at Mac, who’s unscrewing the top of the container and pulling out the rolled canvas. From the look on the kid’s face, Riley’s right. They’ve just been had. “We have to go back, right now.”

“He’ll be long gone,” Cage says. “Cons like this only work if you can pack up and move fast.” 

“It’s worth a shot though, right?” Jack asks. Riley sighs, and then they’re out of the van and running, no sense trying to deal with the traffic. 

Sure enough, when they get back to the shop, the door says it’s closed. Jack ignores that and kicks it open. There are no goons from the back this time, although they wouldn’t have had to question if Jack, Riley and Sam had guns this time.

The back room is deserted. There’s still a couple things in there, one of them the Pawn’s little machine. It must have been too big to clear out easily. Sam walks over and runs a finger along the top of it. “One of the oldest cons in the book, really.” She shrugs. “Actually kind of elegant in its simplicity. The real Franz Marc goes into a machine, and then they show you an X-ray image, congratulate you on the authenticity, then pull out a fake. It's just sleight of hand, but at its finest.” Jack guesses that if you spend your life playing mind games, you never really lose interest in other people’s versions of them. Just like he never gets tired of checking out the pictures Steve sends him of the newest gun he’s added to his collection.

“We’re all very happy you’re impressed by their con, Sam, but do you have any idea how we might be able to out-maneuver  _ them? _ ” Jack asks. 

“Actually, I might be able to help with that,” Riley says. “I pulled call detail records from the cell tower closest to our current location. I found a single call placed to a second burner phone. Time-stamped right after Mac and Jack walked out with the fake.”

“That must be the Pawn calling Lemaire to report the switch was a success,” Cage says. “Riley, do you think you can pinpoint the location of that second burner?”

“Already done. Tracked it to a mall in Hungary.” Riley pulls up a set of blueprints. “A mall that was closed for renovations in 2008, and never reopened.”

“Sounds like the perfect place to store millions of dollars in stolen art,” Jack says. “Looks like we’re going back to Budapest.” 

* * *

Bozer knows this is probably stupid.  _ If Weissler catches me, he’s gonna be pissed. And probably either shoot me or get me kicked out of school. _

But he’s still hiding in the bushes near the stop sign, waiting for the man to come past with his dog. He’s missing the evening exam on self-defense tactics, which he thinks is probably actually one of the more useful parts of this course, but he’s also possibly about to unmask a threat. He heard the man on the phone earlier, he wasn’t able to make out all the words since it sounds like he was in the house rather than the garage, but he was able to pick out something about “tonight” and “new files” and “same place.”  _ Jill will be thrilled to know how much range that bug has. _

When the man walks past with his dog, Bozer pulls out his phone. He snaps a few pictures of Weissler, his face clearly illuminated by the streetlight on the corner, placing something small and brown into the trash can and walking away. Bozer waits almost fifteen minutes before he uncurls from his hiding spot and moves rather stiffly across the street to the trash can. 

He grabs one of the dog poop cleanup bags that are in a container next to the trash can and reaches into the can to pull out a small box.  _ Spy school didn’t need to teach me about not disturbing fingerprints.  _ He opens it carefully. Inside is a black flashdrive. 

If Riley’s taught him one thing, it’s that putting an unknown device into an unsecured computer is asking to have your location pinged. But the campus computer stations must have state-of-the-art firewall protection. He’ll just have to take it there and see what Weissler is up to. It would be so much faster to take it back to his apartment and plug it into his laptop, but he doesn’t have a secure port like Riley does on her rig.  _ Weissler could show up at my door and shoot me. _

He’s panting when he actually makes it to the campus gate. His ID lets him in, although he gets a strange stare from the guard at the gate, and he rushes down the hall. Apparently the exam just let out, because he’s fighting against a current of sweaty students in joggers and tank tops, with an assortment of bruises on their skin.

He’s opening the door to a computer lab when someone grabs his arm. It’s Leanna, and she has a massive bruise forming on one shoulder and her hair is coming out of its neat ponytail. He’s distracted for a moment by the edges of what looks like a massive scar showing on the back of her shoulder. 

“Bozer! Where have you been?” Leanna hisses. “You missed the entire test and Mr. Reginald’s  _ pissed. _ ” She shakes her head. “So’s Glover. I think she’s gonna kick you out.” 

“Glover can do whatever she wants, after I give her this.” Bozer holds up the drive. “I just need to see what’s on it, and I need the secure computers.”

“Is that from the dead drop?” Leanna’s eyes are wide. 

“Yeah.” Bozer grins. “I overheard him telling someone he was gonna hand over new files. So I hung around until I saw him leave this, and grabbed it.”

“Well, let’s see what’s on it!” Leanna pulls him into the room, clearly now just as enthusiastic as he is. Bozer plugs the drive into one of the computers and boots it up, watching the little red light blinking as it loads. 

“Damn it. It’s encrypted,” Leanna mumbles as a message flashes up on screen, with a box asking them to input a six-character password. But Bozer has a few Riley tricks up his sleeve. 

“I think I might be able to do something about this.” He’s seen her set up rotating password breakers before. “This could take all night…”

Leanna grabs her backpack and pulls out a textbook. “Then I guess we pull an all-nighter and get ready for the pursuit tactics exam tomorrow.” Bozer hopes no one wonders why two students took over the computer lab for a study session.  _ That’s a normal college thing, but I don’t know if normal applies here. _ Still, if someone does come, maybe he can get some help with this flashdrive. 

They’re about an hour into their review session, and Bozer is realizing how much he instinctively knows from riding in cars with Jack, when there’s a ping from the computer. Apparently his little password trick worked fast. 

He opens the only file on the drive, and a series of dossier photos pop up. Bozer recognizes the entire new class he’s come in with, including himself. These are their first day ID badge shots.  _ He’s pulling them off the school database and handing them over to who knows whom?  _ “That's everyone here.” Leanna whispers. “The whole school.” 

“Now correct me if I’m wrong, but even a teacher shouldn’t just be handing our information around to just anyone?” Bozer asks. 

Leanna’s staring at him, eyes wide. “He's IDing operatives before we're fully trained. Do you know what he could do with this? He could expose every spy that's ever walked these halls. We have to get this to Glover.”

And then the door slides open and Bozer looks up just in time to hear a gun click. 

“Well, well. The two brightest students in the class. What a shame you both have to die.” Weissler is standing in the doorway. “Let’s take this outside, shall we?” Bozer sighs.  _ Apparently the school computers aren’t as secure as we thought. _

* * *

BUDAPEST

YES, JACK AND RILEY REMEMBER IT VERY DIFFERENTLY

“Mac, you and Cage stay with the van, okay?” Jack says. “Riley and I’ll scope perimeter.” Riley blinks. Mac and Jack are usually inseparable. Especially since their little escapade last night. Jack’s been hovery, even after Mac stopped coughing and shivering. 

“Are you sure?” She asks. 

“I ain’t lettin’ you out of my sight in Budapest again.” Apparently he’s almost as superstitious about this one as Cairo.  _ Well, I did get kidnapped, interrogated, and almost incinerated, so… _ Not that Jack’s experience was much better. His hotel room got broken into while he was in the shower and if he’s not exaggerating, he fought off five armed men with only a towel. 

She crouches below a low wall running the length of the parking lot. There are several cars there., parked up in the shadows of the building. 

“Thought this place was supposed to be abandoned.” Jack says, glancing at the vehicles. “Looks like you were right about this being Lemaire’s hideout.” She draws her gun, clicking off the safety. 

Behind her, she hears Jack do the same. And then she hears a sound even more ominous than the gun clicking. Jack’s clearing his throat, that’s the ‘serious conversation I didn’t want to have but I’m gonna do it anyway’ sound. “Riley, what’s eatin’ you?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Riley doesn’t want to have this conversation right now, but Jack’s probably going to force her hand. She doesn’t mind that they’re on open comms, Mac and Cage both already know about Elwood.  _ It’s weird to think everyone knows before Jack. _ It’s always been Jack first, before. 

“You have been acting weird. For days now. And I just wanna know why.” Jack shrugs. “Last time you got this skittish around me was the whole hunting-for-Nick-behind-my-back thing. And I don’t want us to go charging into a situation if you’re emotionally compromised and not right there with me one hundred percent.” 

“I am. I promise.” She’s got this under control. She can focus.

“Last time you said you were fine with a mission that hit home, you got gut-shot.” She knows.  _ I let personal problems get in the way of the mission, and letting everything about Nick get inside my head almost got me killed. _ But this is different. _ Not in any way that matters. You haven’t been giving ops your full attention, and that could get someone killed. _

Riley sighs, defeated. “I know. I’m sorry, and I’ll explain everything after the mission, okay?” She can’t afford for them to get sidetracked right now. “So let’s just find our blue horses and…” She trails off, because there’s a big guy behind Jack. With a big gun. Jack turns around, frowning and then stiffening. 

“Do you mind? We're kind of having a moment here.”

“Put the guns down.” His heavy accent doesn’t obscure his intent. “Or you both die.” There are more clicks from the shadows. 

“Oh, hey, fellas. It's cool, it's cool. We, we worked it out.”

Riley hands over her gun and winces when hands force her wrists behind her back and ziptie them tightly. She stumbles along to the door the men are pushing her toward, and inside. It’s even darker inside than out, and she blinks confusedly until lights flicker on and feel almost blinding. Someone yanks her bound arms over her head and attaches them to something; her toes are barely able to drag on the floor and she’s losing feeling in her fingers already.  _ Yay. _ Maybe Budapest is cursed. 

She blinks against the lights and sees someone in the corner. The goons who tied her and Jack up step aside as the man walks up. 

“Hey, Mr. Pawn,” Jack chuckles forcedly. “Nice to see you again.” And then the man gives one of the musclebound goons a nod and he starts slamming his fists into Jack’s face and ribs. 

By the time the Pawn calls off the beating, Jack’s got a bloody nose, a cut and bruised cheek, and he’s panting from the blows to his stomach. The Pawn paces, stopping every few seconds to glance up at Jack. “Somehow, you managed to follow me here. A fatally stupid mistake on your part, but still very impressive.” 

“Hey, you know, just wanted to congratulate you on your con,” Jack says. “That fake Franz Marc was pretty impressive too. I think I might keep it, hang it up in my man-cave.” He earns himself another few punches for that one. 

The Pawn glances from Jack to Riley. “He had another partner, male, blond, late 20s. Find him.” She flinches.  _ Please, Mac, stay away from here.  _ He doesn’t need to add torture to the list of things that have gone wrong for him on this op. “So, looks like you're getting the deal you offered, after all. We pay absolutely nothing for the Franz Marc and you get to meet my boss.” 

Riley hears a door creak, and she sees someone moving out of the corner of her eye. A tall, dark-haired man walks up, standing in front of them and studying them both as if they’re the paintings hanging on the wall. 

Jack spits a mouthful of blood onto the floor. “So, you must be the great and powerful Lemaire. Really been wanting to meet you, man. I’d shake your hand, but I'm a little tied up here.”

The man laughs. “Drop the charade, whoever you are. I know art thieves.” He steps up close, staring into Jack’s face. “I've cultivated them. I've trained them. And you are not one of them.” 

Jack grins, teeth blood-stained. “I don't know, the little blue ponies your boys took off me would say otherwise, smarty-pants.”

“The time for lies is over.” Lemaire raises one hand, and Riley hears the crackle of electricity and sees blue sparks.  _ Cattle prod.  _ She shudders. “I would like to hear the truth. And we can begin with your real name and what agency you are working for.” And then the crackling gets louder and Jack groans. 

His voice is pained as he gasps out an answer. “My name's Kevin Perkins. I'm wide receiver for the...Dallas Cowboys!” his shout cuts off in a barely hidden cry of pain. Riley flinches. 

“That's excruciating, isn't it?” Lemaire holds up the cattle prod. “I hope you know this can all stop if you just tell me who you are.” 

“Okay, well, if you want me to sing, you're gonna have to do a little bit more than tickle me, Elmo.” Jack is panting, but he’s staring Lemaire down. “You know, I’ve met electric fence with more kick than that little fairy wand.” He chuckles.  _ Jack always, always tells me that electric shock is nothing compared to him and his friend George daring each other to grab the bull fences on the ranch. _ She’s not sure if that’s true and has no intention of finding out. 

Lemaire swings her way. “Perhaps your friend here will be a little more chatty?”

“Very introverted,” Riley groans out, trying to ignore the searing pain in her shoulders. Jack is tall enough to have his feet on the floor where he’s tied. She’s not.

“She's very beautiful.” His hand slides along her jaw, and she glares at him, spitting. He jumps back, wiping his face, eyes glinting with anger. She doesn’t even see the backhand coming until her lip is split and her mouth is full of copper-tangy blood. 

“You better think very carefully about the next thing you do because if you hurt her, I swear to God, I will…” 

“You can do nothing. You will hang there and watch.” His hand slides down her side, along her thigh. Riley swallows. This isn’t close to the first time someone’s decided this is the best line of persuasion. But it might be the first time she can’t get away.  _ Jack, please, don’t blame yourself. _ She already knows he will, if Lemaire goes through with his threat. 

She feels oddly detached, the only thought she has is  _ thank goodness for once it’s not going to be Mac. _ But it doesn’t mean she wants it to be her either. She flinches at the undisguised lust in Lemaire’s eyes.  _ Mac, how can you keep going back into the field when people treat you like this?  _ She has a whole new appreciation for how terrified he must have been trapped with Murdoc in that basement. 

“Hurting you gives me no pleasure. But if you continue to defy me, I’m sure I’ll enjoy breaking her.” 

* * *

SPY SCHOOL

IRONIC THAT AFTER EVERYTHING, BOZER IS PROBABLY GOING TO DIE HERE

Bozer can’t help remembering what he said to Jill before he left. 

_ I’ve already survived being disavowed, getting stabbed in Phoenix’s own labs, going up against a ruthless killer on a haunted island, and almost getting blown up by a nuke and a burning wellhead. How hard can it be? _

But apparently the training that was supposed to help save his life is actually how he dies.  _ So much for my future spy career. _ Clearly there was a tracking device in that flashdrive, he’s not sure exactly how it worked and at the moment that’s not extremely important. 

“I thought someone was following me,” Weissler says. “You two should have stayed out of it all.”

“Well, then, you shouldn’t be selling our identities on the black market,” Bozer snaps back; it sounds like something Jack would say to get someone riled up enough to make his move. “It doesn’t matter if you kill us, because if your contact had gotten that flashdrive we’d be dead the second we went back in the field.”

“Enough talking.” Weissler shoves open the back door that leads out onto the obstacle course. Bozer’s pretty sure he’s going to take them off into the woods back there and shoot them. Unless they get away first. 

He stumbles, pretending to trip over something in the dark.  _ If I can get his attention on me… _ This was always the plan back in middle school, for getting the bullies to leave Mac alone long enough for him to do whatever it was he was going to. He hopes Leanna will figure out what he’s doing.  _ If it was Mac, he’d know in a heartbeat. _

Sure enough, when he looks up, Weissler is swinging toward him...And Leanna is aiming a hard kick at the man’s knee. Bozer rolls to the side as Weissler falls and the gun goes off, and he feels dirt spray his face. But there’s no time to be worried about the close call. 

He jumps up, feeling across the ground for anything he can use as a weapon and coming up empty. And then Leanna shrieks. 

Bozer spins around to see that Weissler, now on his knees, must have caught her next kick and flung her onto the ground. “You should have run,” He snarls, holding the gun to her head. “But you decided to try and save your little boyfriend. How stupidly brave.” 

Bozer uses the only weapon he has, himself. He may have missed self-defense training tonight, but he knows how to deal with bullies who pick on his friends. He tackles Weissler, wrapping his arm around the man’s neck and grabbing for his gun arm. There’s another echoing shot, and he flinches as the sound echoes in his ears. He hopes he got this guy far enough away from Leanna. 

“Get help!” He screams, knowing this guy is bigger, more trained, and will probably get the best of him any second.

And then there’s a thud, Weissler groans and goes limp, and Bozer looks up just in time to see Leanna kicking the gun out of the man’s slack hand, as floodlights flash on and voices surround them.

Glover, as well as a handful of the staff, is running over with gun drawn. “Mr. Bozer, Ms. Martin, what is the meaning of this? Why are you assaulting one of our teachers?”

“Um, actually, you got that backward.” Bozer reaches into his pocket and pulls out the flashdrive. “Karl here is a crook.” He stumbles to his feet, panting, and lays the flashdrive in Glover’s hand. 

* * *

Sam leans against the side of the van and sighs. Jack’s pushing for answers from Riley, and she’s probably going to cave.  _ The only reason she hasn’t told him yet is because we haven’t slowed down since Ecuador, and she didn’t want Jack to work himself up while he was recuperating. _ Or at least that’s what Riley claims.

Sam knows there’s more to it.  _ Jack respects her enough to listen if she said she wanted him to stay out of it. Or at least he wouldn’t get into a fistfight. _ Jack is right, he’s saying the last time this happened was when Riley was lying about having called off searching for Nick Carpenter. But this time, her motives are different.  _ Not telling him about Nick was because she knew he would be upset. Not telling him about Elwood... _ Riley’s testing what it looks like to have a life Jack isn’t one-hundred percent involved in. 

She’s feeling a distance between them, and that Sam has also seen in person. Riley’s used to having Jack to herself, and having to share is making her feel insecure.  _ Now that he spends more time with Mac, she wonders how long it will be before she gets replaced. _ It’s an illogical fear to an outside observer, but not to someone who was abused and walked out on as a child.  _ She was never treated like she was valuable, so she struggles to understand that she is valued when that’s not reinforced as often.  _

And then Sam hears the clicking guns through the comms and sits up straighter. From the sounds of things, Jack and Riley just got caught. “They’re in trouble.” She grabs her own gun. “Mac, stay with the van.”

He shakes his head. “You might need help.”  _ Jack left him here because he was freaked out by what happened last night. He was trying to keep Mac out of danger. _ But she knows if something happens and Mac wasn’t right there doing everything he could, he’ll blame himself, and that’s also something Jack would like to avoid. 

She finds another side door, this one unguarded, and after Mac pops the lock open they both slip inside, following the sound of voices. 

They come out in the back of a large store space that’s full of scaffolding and other remodeling supplies, as well as a corner that Cage can already tell is an art forger’s workspace. There are several blank canvases, and the pre-painting for the Blue Horses is drying nearby. Sam wrinkles her nose at the paint smell, it reminds her of when Mom used to paint landscapes while sitting in the dining room, when Sam was a child.

There’s a bank of workmen’s lights trained on a section of scaffolding in the opposite end of the room, and Cage hears the crackle of electricity and a stifled groan.  _ Jack pissed everyone off again. _ It seems to be his specialty.

She and Mac creep closer as the sounds die down, and now she can hear someone speaking. “Maybe your friend will be more chatty?” A man who’s little more than a silhouette against the blinding lights walks over to Riley. 

“She’s very beautiful,” the man says, and Sam watches Mac shiver.  _ He doesn’t want to see someone else go through what he has. _ When Riley spits in the man’s face, Sam grins.  _ You show him, girl. _

“We have to get them out of there.” Mac’s eyes are wide and panicky. “We have to get them out right now.”

Sam nods. “I think I can take the muscle there. If I have a distraction. Can you…”

He bites his lip, glancing around the room, then back at the art corner. She can almost see the lightbulb go on in his head. “Yeah. Be ready to move, this is gonna happen fast.” He grabs up a can of paint thinner and a rag, shoves the rag in the can, and buries it all in a crate of packing peanuts, probably something some of the art was shipped in. And then he sets the end of the rag on fire and rolls the crate out into the middle of the room.

Sam grins.  _ Why am I not surprised in the least? _

* * *

Riley barely has time to realize that there’s something rolling into the room before everything goes crazy. A shower of bright sparks leaps out of the crate, and all Riley can think is that they look like fireworks. And then she sees the goons who captured her and Jack fighting, and in between them there’s a flash of blond hair.  _ Sam? _

The whole section of scaffolding they’re on begins to sway, and then topples to the ground. Riley flinches, unable to catch herself, biting back a cry when one of the boards catches her in the shin. 

And then someone’s hands are on hers, and she looks up to see Cage cutting her free. She can see Mac doing the same for Jack, and the second Jack is free Mac is rushing over to kneel beside her. “Riley, Riley, are you okay?” Mac is shivering, hands hovering over her, clearly avoiding touching her. Obviously he heard enough of what was happening to know what Lemaire was threatening. She looks at where the man is currently pinned under the scaffolding as well, and she can’t muster up an ounce of sympathy, even though his leg is clearly broken. 

“Yeah. He didn’t do anything,” she says quickly, because now Jack is free and hovering too. “I’m fine, I swear. The scaffolding knocked my leg on the way down, but it’s fine.” 

Jack helps her to her feet, both of them wincing. “Dallas Cowboys, really?” She asks, hoping to get everyone to relax. 

“America’s team, baby. America’s team.” Jack shakes his head, then groans again. “Ooh, gonna feel that tomorrow.” The two of them limp away from where Mac and Cage are tying up the goons. 

Riley leans against the wall, and Jack does as well, facing her. She winces at the blood and bruises on his face.  _ He was right. I was emotionally compromised, and him having to worry about that almost blew the mission. _ If she’d been honest with him from the start they wouldn’t have been arguing in the parking lot and let these guys sneak up on them. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything. And if something would have happened…”

“Nothing did.” Jack grabs her hand in his own, holding on tight. 

She sighs. “Just...please promise me you won’t go all Wookie this time, okay? You’re in no condition for it.” He frowns. “It’s just...Elwood’s back, but I’m dealing with it, and he seems to be listening this time.” 

Jack chuckles. “You do realize I’ve known Elwood is in town for two days now, right?”

“How…”

“I’m a spy, Riles. It’s my job to know things.” He shrugs. “And he was texting you while you were asleep on the plane.” She smiles wryly.  _ Busted. _

“Okay. Yeah, he came back while we were in Ecuador. I didn’t tell you because of the mission, and then you were supposed to be taking it easy after Mac borrowed your heart.” She gives him a small, pained smile. “Didn’t want you getting yourself all worked up.” She sighs. “If he would have started giving me trouble I’d have given him another busted nose myself. But...he’s actually possibly turning things around this time.”

“As opposed to the other times he’s walked back into your life just because he wanted something?” She knows how it looks. She does. But there is something different this time.

“He’s clean. And it sounds like all he wants to do is start patching things up. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he has a  _ lot _ to apologize for and if he asks for so much as a dollar I’ll deck him, but...I think the least I can do is give him a chance.” 

Jack nods. “You got a big heart, Ri, I love that about you. And I get that you want to figure this thing out with him yourself. I just don’t want you to feel like you need to handle everything alone.” 

“I’m a big girl, Jack.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t mean you’re not still always gonna be  _ my _ little girl.” It feels better than she’d admit to hear him say that.  _ Sam was right. It doesn’t matter how old you are, it still matters to know you’re loved. _ “I’m sorry you felt like you couldn’t come to me with whatever was going on.” 

“I just didn’t want to bother you. And we’ve been so busy.” 

“I’m gonna tell you the same thing I told Mac. Repeatedly. You are never, ever a burden on me.” She nods, swallowing.

“About that...Jack...I have a confession.” She can see the worry flooding his warm brown eyes. “I...when you told me about the dog tags...and even before that...I’ve been kind of jealous.” She stares at the ground. “I know it’s stupid and selfish…”

“No, it’s not. Oh kiddo, it’s not.” Jack pulls her up against him, and she hears tears choking his voice. “I am so sorry.” He runs his fingers through her tangled hair. “I never meant for you to feel like you were getting pushed aside.”

“But I really did think I was fine,” Riley says. “I was jealous last year, when you first started actually letting Mac have some space in your life, but then I thought it was fine…”

“Listen, you don’t have to apologize for feeling. Ever. It’s okay. I’m the one who should be apologizing. You’re so strong, Ri. And sometimes it’s easy to forget how well you hide anything that hurts you.” He smiles tearily. “But if I ever, ever made you feel like I was too busy for you, I’m so sorry.”

“I appreciate that, Jack. I really do.” She smiles, then winces at the split lip. “And mostly, I’ve been okay. It’s just the past week or so that’s been a little rough.” 

Jack sighs. “Momma always said playing favorites in the family was a recipe for disaster. And I didn’t mean to, but…”

“Jack, I’m not upset. Mac’s had a rough...well, life.”  _ And the past few missions have been hard on him. _

“Yeah, but so have you, kiddo. And I promise I’m gonna make time for just us, okay?”

“You know what I do miss?” She asks. “Our weekly breakfast tradition.” She shrugs. “I know everything’s been crazy, especially after Murdoc, and we haven’t really had time…”

“Oh kiddo,” Jack says quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not a big deal. I just miss...feeling normal,” she says. “Like a real family.” 

He nods slowly. “I’m sure both of us are gonna have some injury downtime, after this, so I’ll clear my schedule for one of those. I miss that too.” 

“There’s a really cute diner down the street from my mom’s apartment. It looks like they have a killer waffle special.”  _ Okay, so maybe I’m hoping we’ll run into Diane… _

* * *

THE PHOENIX JET

GOING HOME-FINALLY

Mac walks up to where Riley is folding and unfolding a square piece of paper. He was dozing, but every time he drifted off he heard Lemaire’s threats again.  _ If that happened to Riley…  _ He feels sick at just the thought. He  _ knows _ she’s probably been threatened like that before, probably experienced the same kind of stares and assumptions that have been directed his way. But as far as he knows, she’s been lucky. And that almost changed tonight.

If he’s fighting off a case of the jitters he knows Riley’s probably pretty shaken too. And the fact that she’s trying and failing to make something origami just confirms it.  _ She’s trying to keep her mind busy. _

He clears his throat before he gets any closer, and she jumps, dropping the paper and glancing up guiltily. “Oh. Hi, Mac.”

“This seat taken?” He asks, leaning on the one across from her. 

“Nope.” She picks up the paper again. “But I’m not very good company tonight.”

Mac just nods. 

“I can see why you do that thing with the paperclips,” she says quietly. “It’s a good distraction. Something else to focus on.” 

Mac nods. “Makes your mind stop repeating everything.” He knows what she must be feeling. The hands on her body, the hungry eyes. 

“It wasn’t the first time,” she says, shrugging. “I don’t know why…”

“There’s no reason for how badly something affects you,” Mac says quietly. He pulls the creased, partly torn paper out of her fingers and wraps his hand around hers. “Bishop wasn’t close to my first time, and...well, you know how bad that went.” He was a wreck for weeks. 

“I guess it was the thought that Jack was going to be right there,” Riley mumbles. “Before, he was always on the outside. I thought that maybe even if the worst happened, he would never have to know. But this time, they would have made him watch.” She sighs shakily. “I’m so tired, but I don’t want to close my eyes. I know what I’m going to dream of.” 

Mac swallows hard. He knows  _ exactly  _ what she’s feeling. “I’m not going to say it’s going to be okay right now. Or for a while. But it will get better.” He glances at Cage typing up the after action report and Jack sleeping in a chair, a butterfly bandage on his cheek. “We’re all here for you.” 

She sighs. “I just...I feel guilty. In a way. Because it doesn’t seem fair to be this shaken up when nothing even happened.” Her fingers are wrapped tight around his now, the rings she always wears are pressing dents into his skin. 

“Just because someone has a different experience doesn’t change the fact that something bad happened.” He glances down at the table between them. “And no one faults you for feeling the way you do.  _ Especially _ not me.” He knows she was avoiding saying she feels guilty because of his past. 

“Thank you.” Her fingers wrap around his, and even though neither of them fall asleep, it’s a start. 

* * *

Jack’s still a little achy, and his nose is swollen, but he’s feeling pretty good about things when they walk back into the Phoenix.

“Well, we have Lemaire in custody, the Franz Marc is back in our possession, and we cut off a terrorist revenue stream...all in all I’d say this mission was…” Riley groans. “A work of art.” 

“Maybe in a Jackson Pollock kind of way?” Sam chuckles. 

“Sam! Don’t encourage him!” Riley socks her former roommate in the arm, and Cage elbows her back. 

Matty shakes her head when they walk into the War Room. “Well, I’m glad your mission turned out so well. But you’re not the ones everyone’s talking about right now.” Jack frowns.  _ What happened?  _ He knows they sort of screwed up, but they did fix it.

Patty takes the Franz Marc, in its travel case, from Mac. “Bozer managed to uncover a mole in the training academy, someone who’d been funneling classified data to the black market for years.” 

“What?” Jack suddenly feels guilty for belittling Boze’s concerns.  _ He really was onto something. _

“Apparently one of the teachers, a former BND operative named Karl Weissler, was flipped by a rogue agency three months ago and started using his position as a teacher to ID operatives in training. Thanks to Bozer, the entire operation has been shut down.” 

“That’s awesome,” Mac says. 

“Yeah, go Bozer!” Riley’s grinning.

“He’s gonna be the big man on campus now,” Jack chuckles. “Of course he'll have to walk by that giant bronze statue they erected of me there. I'm kind of a legend.”

“Didn't they kick you out after the whole septic tank incident?” Riley asks. 

“I'll tell you the same thing I told my instructor: I thought it was a dummy grenade, and I chose an approved method of disposal for a training exercise. And I didn't get kicked out, I graduated early.”  _ I never should have told her that story. I knew she was gonna use it against me. _

“Does that mean you even graduated?” Cage asks. 

Jack rolls his eyes. “You’re asking the man who pulled off an art heist, captured a major crook,  _ and _ is going to put said art back where it belongs?”

“Actually, you’re not. Seeing how you and Mac managed to spectacularly fail at stealth, I will be returning the Franz Marc  _ myself _ ,” Patty says, raising her eyebrows.

“Oh, just admit you were jealous we got to play Thomas Crown,” Jack chuckles. “You know you just wanted to be in on the heist.” There’s a slight quirk to Thornton’s mouth, he knows he’s at least partially right. Being Oversight means she’s not technically supposed to participate in field ops anymore, and while she’s far better at handling being behind a desk than Jack could ever be, he knows sometimes it chafes. 

“I expect there to be action reports from every one of you on my desk by the time I get home,” she says, putting the strap of the painting case over her shoulder.  

Jack grins. “Yeah, and Patty? When you put it back, don’t sit in the chairs.”  

* * *

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

Sam’s always been good at blending into a crowd, scoping out her mark, and planning an attack. But this time, she’s not here for an assassination. She shifts nervously, standing on tiptoe to see over the crowd around her. 

“This building will be the most state of the art, environmentally-sustainable housing complex in Sydney, thanks to the efforts of our newest junior designer. Please welcome Linsey Riddick.” There’s a burst of applause as someone a little taller than Sam remembers, but still recognizable, steps up to the podium.

“Thank you all for coming to the unveiling of the Kern Plaza.” Her voice is so much stronger.  _ She must have had to be after Mom died. _ The papers Sam eventually dug up told her that Emily Riddick had died less than a year after “Deborah” vanished.  _ She never got over the thought that she lost me, I guess. _ And that stings. The thought that it was her own decisions that deprived her little sister of her mother. 

“This building is the first in a new generation of solar-integrated development.” Linsey continues, pointing out the design features that involve solar-collection glass, and also the building’s partly ambient air-cooled design. It reminds Sam of the drawings she used to see spread out on Linsey’s desk in her room. _ She was able to do what she always dreamed of. _

Her sister steps offstage and the developer returns, giving what sounds like a practiced marketing spiel. Sam works her way through the crowd toward where Linsey disappeared. The developer is just wrapping up his pitch when Sam sees the familiar face. 

But Lin isn’t alone. There’s someone talking to her, a man a good head taller than her, with reddish hair and deeply tanned skin. “That was amazing. You’re about to become the most popular architect in Australia.”

“I don’t know about that,” Linsey chuckles, but she’s grinning. Sam doesn’t have to be an expert in body language to know what she’s looking at. She sees the glitter of a ring on Linsey’s finger as she lets the man pull her into a kiss.

_ She has a life, a job, a fiance. She doesn’t need a presumed-dead criminal sister walking back into her life after all this time. _ Sam doesn’t want to acknowledge that it hurts as much as it does.  _ I guess I expected her to still be waiting for me, to have been unable to move on.  _ But clearly, Linsey hasn’t suffered for not having her sister in her life.

Sam turns and melts into the crowd.


	9. CD-ROM+Hoagie Foil

###  209-CD ROM+Hoagie Foil

CODY’S CONEYS AND MORE

JACK’S FAVORITE KIND OF BREAKFAST PLACE

RIley shakes her head when Jack adds a milkshake to his order. “With  _ breakfast? _ ” She groans as soon as the waitress leaves.

“Milk  _ is _ a breakfast food, kiddo.” Jack gives her a sly grin. “That’s one of my many talents in life, you know. I can make anything healthy.” She knows he’s not quite as terrible an eater as he pretends to be, heart disease runs in his dad’s side of the family so he’s more careful than he makes it sound. But he doesn’t miss a chance to go all out for a special occasion. Like their first breakfast out in over a month. “Crape diem and all that, you know?”

“It’s  _ Carpe Diem _ , Jack.” She shakes her head; he’s being a weirdo on purpose, because he claims it’s a father’s job to embarrass his daughter. 

She’s glad they talked, after Budapest. Because now that weird constant dissatisfaction is disappearing.  _ We’re just adjusting to life with an added member of the family, and that takes time. _ But she wouldn’t change it for anything. Mac is the kindest, most generous, least judgmental person she knows. He’s been willing to text her back at 3 a.m. when the nightmares from Lemaire’s threats get the best of her, and he insists he’s always, always available for her if she wants to come by and talk. 

“You and Mac are both way too fussy about proper pronunciation.” Jack chuckles. 

“That’s because we like to at least look like we know what we’re doing.” She’s missed this, the banter that sounds like they’re on the verge of throwing fists, the ability to leave work behind (mostly, they’re sitting in a booth away from the windows but with a great view of the door) and the one on one time with Jack. 

“So Diane lives down the street?” Jack asks, giving her a sly sideways glance. “Is that the real reason you insisted we try this place?”

Riley shrugs, grinning. “It wouldn’t hurt to talk to her, you know.”

“She doesn’t ever want to see me again.”

“She asks about you every time she sees me, practically.” And lately, Riley’s been making sure to brag him up plenty. “I don’t think she’s still mad.”

“I don’t know if I trust that the legendary Davis Family ability to hold a grudge doesn’t apply to her as well.” Jack’s milkshake arrives, as well as Riley’s coffee, and when he pulls off the straw wrapper he dips the straw in her coffee and starts making the wrapper a caterpillar. 

She grins in anticipation as her plate of chocolate chip waffles and Jack’s plate of plain ones, both with a large side of bacon, are carried out. “I think she’s willing to forgive and forget.” 

Her phone buzzes just as she’s lifting her first fork of waffle. 

“Oh man, that better not be Phoenix,” Jack grumbles.

“We’re on injury leave, so unless it’s the zombie apocalypse…”

“Oh that reminds me! You never answered my text about what weapon you’d choose if the undead were attacking.” 

“Lightsaber. Duh, we talked about this when we were on that stakeout in Kyoto,” Riley says. 

“Ok, you need to tell that to Mac. He thinks it’s stupid.” Riley’s phone buzzes again. “Hey, maybe you should see who wants to get ahold of you.” 

“I’m not letting anything interrupt our breakfast.” Riley deliberately flips the phone over. 

Underneath it, the text that reads  **Elwood: I found James’s son, but Riley, what are you doing working WITH HIM?** blinks unanswered. 

* * *

SOMEWHERE IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS

MAC REALLY NEVER WANTED TO COME BACK HERE

“So this is the cabin from the photo?” Jack asks. Mac only nods. After Murdoc, he’d more or less pushed the clue James left for him in Paris to the back of his mind. But after what Riley said in Ecuador, about needing to face Elwood to put the past behind her, he wants to be able to look James in the eye, remind him he lost, and then slam a cell door in the man’s face and walk away free. 

He doesn’t know if that’s a little  _ too _ vindictive, but he’s heard Jack muttering under his breath about ‘might  _ accidentally _ shoot the bastard when we find him’ so he’s pretty sure his reaction is at least logical. 

It took Riley’s software some time to match the background of the photo to a physical location. Mac didn’t remember where the cabin was. James never said, and the car they drove to get there had windows Mac couldn’t see out of, so he couldn’t tell what roads they took, only that they went north. 

He  _ does _ remember being left outside to stand and shiver in the snow while James and the people who came to meet him went inside and talked.  _ He must have been making deals up there, selling his weapons and bombs discreetly. _ He always wondered why James took him with him on those trips, but now he thinks it might have been the same reason James always isolated him from anyone who could have become a close friend.  _ He didn’t want me to be alone with anyone and let any of his secrets slip. _ And leaving Mac to stay with a neighbor while James went on his ‘business trips’ could have meant Mac accidentally telling someone too much, or someone potentially seeing the bruises his clothes normally hid. 

There’s snow again, and Mac can’t help but be hit by memories more painful than the bitter wind against his face.  _ It was fun at first. We never had enough snow to do anything with in California.  _ But it was too cold to make snowmen, and eventually he’d asked to come inside. James had just told him to stop being impatient. 

The door is loose on its hinges, banging open and closed, and the cabin has almost as much snow inside as out. Mac steps in, glancing around. There’s an old dented metal pail next to a sooty fireplace, and a rusted iron bunk bed frame in the corner, but other than that the place is empty. 

“Why would he lead us up here to an empty cabin?” Jack asks. “Wait. Dude, stop.” He’s standing perfectly still. “Something creaked under your foot.”

Mac flinches.  _ Did James really go through this whole elaborate game to lure me up here and kill me with a bomb? _ Maybe he just wanted to make sure no one would be able to find the evidence for a long time, this is the middle of nowhere. 

But James didn’t count on Mac coming with friends, he’s sure of that. “Jack, see if you can get a look at anything.” Jack turns on his phone flashlight and bends over. “Can you see any wires?”

“No...there’s a gap in the floorboards here.”

“Maybe it’s just sprung. From all the moisture getting in.” Mac takes a breath, forcing himself to relax.  _ If James wanted you dead there are easier ways to do it. _ But he can’t help wondering if maybe this wasn’t meant for him specifically.  _ Maybe James always had a booby trap and expected me to remember that. _

“Yeah, but no sense taking chances. Kiddo, if that is a bomb, I’m not seeing a way to disarm it.” Jack turns off the flashlight, standing up. “Listen. This kind of charge is probably some kind of a mine, gonna blow mostly straight up. So I’m gonna try and grab you and get us both out the door, okay?” Mac nods.

And then Jack is tackling him, and they’re rolling out the door into the snow. Jack’s weight on top of Mac is more than a little terrifying, but he knows the older man’s just trying to protect him in case the explosion is worse than he expects.

But nothing happens. The air is still cold and silent, and finally they both roll over to see the cabin still standing.  _ Not a bomb. So what was that loose floorboard hiding? _

Mac grabs a poker out of the pail by the fireplace and starts prying up the board. Underneath it is a metal strongbox, with the key still in the lock. Mac opens the lid, and reaches down into the bottom where a single piece of paper is folded up. It’s ragged and grimy around the edges, but the red and black print is still readable. 

“Dude, what is a carry-out menu from a San Francisco Chinese restaurant doing in James’s cabin in Montana?” Mac just stares at it.  _ This doesn’t make sense.  _ Would James have stopped at this place and left a clue, like he did at the Paris cafe?

Jack snaps a couple pictures of the menu, then starts dialing the phone number. “Damn, no cell reception up here.” 

“We’ll see if we can figure this out once we get back to civilization.” Mac’s eager to get away from this place. He doesn’t look back at the cold, lonely cabin when he and Jack walk away. 

* * *

PARK BENCH

RILEY’S BECOMING A REGULAR

Elwood’s clearly in a hurry today. He’s moving at the fastest pace that can still be termed a walk, and he’s at the bench before Riley even stands up. 

Riley gives him a small smile. “Hi, it’s good to see you.”

“Riley, honey, please.” Elwood looks like he hasn’t slept in a week. “Stop acting like everything is fine. And stop lying to me about what you’re doing with James MacGyver’s  _ son _ .” 

Riley knew this was coming. He texted her four days ago, asking about it. And despite her hedging, he wants answers. “I told you. He’s a co-worker.” She meets Elwood’s eyes. “He was cleared of both the murder and terrorism charges months ago. And our business doesn’t turn away people with a criminal record. Otherwise I wouldn’t be there either. Or have you forgotten  _ you’re _ the reason I have a juvie record for grand theft auto?” She was too good to get caught hacking, but car theft was another matter entirely. 

Elwood shakes his head. “You didn’t kill someone and get away with it. Actually, if everything they say about him is true, he’s killed more than that guy in the warehouse, they just can’t pin it on him.” Riley knows, because Mac’s talked about it a rare few times, mostly when a bit too drunk, that there were a few unplanned casualties of his crime fighting. All of them cartel members, the streets better off without them, but Mac still lives with that guilt. 

If Elwood wants to pick a fight over this, Riley already knows whose side she’s on. “Mac isn’t like his father.” 

“Or he’s exactly the same, an expert manipulator. And you’ve fallen for it.” There’s no anger in Elwood’s voice, just fear. Still, Riley bristles at the implication. 

“I know who to trust. Believe me.” 

“Then tell me why you’re helping him look for James.” Riley frowns. Maybe asking anything about that man was a mistake. Because clearly it’s sent Elwood on a mission to find out the truth. 

“His father abandoned him. The only thing Mac wants is to see that man get what’s coming to him.” 

“That’s what he tells you. Because I’m sure he knows about you and me. People like him make it their business to find the pressure points, and yours is family. He’s conning you, babe. Making you feel like you can connect with him, like you understand each other.”

“No. He’s not.” Maybe this would have scared her a year ago; when all she knew about Mac was that it was  _ possible _ he was innocent of the crimes he went to prison for. But after seeing Mac selflessly throw his life on the line over and over for her and Jack and the others, she knows it’s not true. “Mac doesn’t play games like that. And if you met him, you’d know.” She won’t tell him everything about prison; it’s not her place to share that piece of Mac’s past. 

“I just don’t understand…”

“I know him better than I know you, Elwood.” Riley isn’t going to pull her punches, no one picks on Mac around her, Jack, or any of the rest of his new family, and gets away with it. “I trust him, and you don’t have any say in who I spend my time helping.” 

Elwood sighs. “I just don’t want to see you get killed.”

“I don’t either. But that’s a risk I’m willing to take. Unlike you, I put other people’s needs above my own sometimes.” She relishes the sting she knows her words will leave. It might be petty, but he’s talking about Mac like he’s some kind of monster and she’s not about to let that stand. “And so does he. Everything he did as a vigilante? He was trying to make this city a little safer. Trying to keep people like his best friend’s baby brother from getting killed for no reason. Mac is the most selfless person I’ve ever met, and I know the only reason he’s hunting James now is the same reason he became the Phoenix. To try and save lives.”

Elwood crumbles, sitting down hard on the bench. Riley joins him. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

“I know you’re trying to protect me, but I’m more than capable of doing that myself.” There was a time not that long ago she wouldn’t have been able to say that. When she doubted everything about her ability to keep herself safe, because of Nick. But she’s learned. And now, she knows even better how to spot someone who only wants to exploit her. “If it makes you feel better, Jack trusts him too.”

“Actually, it does.” Elwood shakes his head. “Man’s a good judge of character.” He laughs wryly. “He knew what a messed-up son of a bitch I was before I did.” He leans back on the bench. “I’m sorry for going off on you like that.”

“It’s been so long that I’ve forgotten what Mac’s story looks like to an outsider,” Riley says, leaning forward and pulling one of his paperclips out of her jacket pocket. The little outline of a dog catches the sunlight. “It took some time for all of us to warm up to him, honestly.”  _ Jack calling him Carl’s Jr. feels like a lifetime ago now. _

Elwood nods. “I guess I should be grateful you’re willing to take chances on people. It’s the only reason I’m talking to you now.” Riley nods, and gives him the ghost of a smile.  _ He’s not wrong. _

* * *

“Dude, I don’t get it. A ten-year-old menu for a place that doesn’t even exist anymore. That’s just random.” Jack shrugs. “And you’re sure you don’t remember him ever taking you there?”

“James hated Chinese food. He was allergic to soy.” That, Mac does remember.

“Ooh, maybe I should fill a water gun with soy sauce, douse him with his kryptonite when we catch up to him.”

“Not deathly allergic. Just...uncomfortably.” Mac frowns, looking at the pictures of the menu on his phone. “But some of these specials are circled.” 

“Maybe it’s another code?” Jack asks. “Like the numbers in the watch?”

“I don’t know.” Mac feels like he’s chasing his tail.  _ Damn, Jack’s puppy comparisons are starting to rub off. _ He’s tired of trying to solve this mystery, tired of being given another piece and another piece and expected to know where they fit.  _ James always did that to me. He wanted to make me work for anything I ever got. Said that was the only way I was ever going to appreciate it. _

“What are you two going on about? You’re making me hungry for Almond Chicken,” Jill says, grinning as she passes them in the hall. Mac remembers, from his brief stint in R&D, that Jill likes to eat carry-out when she’s working late. She almost always had takeout containers from the closest Chinese restaurant in her trash can.  _ Come to think of it, I used some of her chopsticks on that one project. _ And got in trouble for adding non-approved materials.  _ But it made it work perfectly. _

“We followed up on that photo James left for me in Paris,” Mac says. “But it just left more questions.”  _ Like why James would go to all the trouble of hiding a single takeout menu in a strongbox. _

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Actually maybe there is. Jill, I need you to find out everything you can about a “Canton Palace” that was open in San Francisco ten years ago.” Mac shows her the photos. “And start running the circled numbers through every processing algorithm you have.”

“Oooh a mystery. I’m game.”

Mac flinches when Matty shouts into the hall. “Hey, Blondie, Dalton, are you planning on joining us? Or should I mail you a formal invitation?” 

“Coming, Matty. Keep your shirt on,” Jack shouts back. Mac’s surprised Matty isn’t giving him the finger right now. 

“I’ll email the pictures of the menu to you as soon as I can,” Mac says, and hurries through the door with Jack following him. 

“Oh. So glad you can join us,” Matty says sharply. “Sorry to interrupt your busy schedule with a matter of national security.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure finding James counts as a matter of national security,” Jack retorts. Mac just tries to disappear into the background. Matty’s not in a good mood today, and Jack is pushing all her buttons. He’s going to make it worse.

Sure enough, Matty gives Jack her patented death glare before turning back to the screen. “Just listen. Last month, 50 canisters of VX nerve gas were discovered in a bunker in Bulgaria. U.S. forces seized them and sent them back to the States, earmarked for destruction. Unfortunately, only 49 of them were actually destroyed.”

Riley frowns. “Let me guess. Number 50 went missing.”

Jack shifts worriedly, crossing his arms. “Ooh. Ooh, that's no bueno.”

Cage’s lips are pressed into a tight line. “No bueno doesn't even begin to describe it, Jack. I've seen what VX can do up close in a Syrian village.” Mac wonders briefly what era of her life that was. If she was the person trying to assist the villagers, or the one who deployed the chemical weapon. And then he feels guilty for even thinking about it.  _ I hate it when other people make assumptions about my past. I’m not going to do that to her. _ He tries to shut off the voice in his head as Cage continues. “First, it just looks like you caught a cold. Runny nose, shortness of breath. Then the muscle spasms start. And they don't stop until you either get treatment or die.”

“Well, do we have a suspect?” Riley asks. 

“We don't need suspects when we know who did it. Meet Dr. Ian Carson.” Matty pulls up the image of an unassuming man in a lab coat. “The technician tasked with destroying the VX. But instead of completing his job, he put the missing canister up for sale on the black market.”

“Guess he was looking to finance his retirement,” Cage mumbles. 

“Well, the good doctor is going to be spending his retirement in a supermax.” The second Matty says it, Mac feels the familiar sinking in his stomach. No matter how many times they discuss what’s going to happen to the people he and the team capture, talking about prison always makes him feel on edge. “Phoenix TAC teams are en route to sweep him up.”

Mac nods. “Okay. Where's the canister now?” He wants to get his mind off Carson, and his fate, as fast as possible. 

“We tracked it to Carson's lab, which brings us to your assignment. Go get me number 50 before it falls into the wrong hands.”

“That's it? That's the mission? Really? Steal a can of VX soda from an unguarded freezer? It's too easy.” Jack looks worried.  _ Because every other mission that’s sounded ‘too easy’ has almost ended in catastrophe. _ Mac can’t help but remember how close they all came to nuclear annihilation in Azerbaijan. 

“We're talking about a canister of deadly nerve gas, Jack, not Mountain Dew. But the fact remains that we need to get it back, and for now, we have a clear window. Let’s not wait around worrying about what could go wrong and lose our chance.” 

Jack huffs, defeated. “Fine. And I want an apology right now, eye-to-eye.”

“What for, Dalton?”

“Dissing the Dew. You know how much I love that stuff.”

Matty just shakes her head. “Riley, you're here with me. Mac, Jack, Cage, you're in the field. Now, go.” Riley shoots them a ‘save me’ look as they walk out. Being left alone with Matty in her Hun mode is no picnic. Mac just gives her a sympathetic smile as the door closes behind them. 

* * *

Bozer slams his hands on the metal table, watching Leanna flinch in the cuffs. “No, no, no! I've had enough of your stalling! You're gonna tell me what I want to know now or this is going to a whole other level. That means no more questions, just a lot of pain.” He twists his face into his best villain stare, the one he’s been perfecting for his movie about superhero gladiator games.  _ Just channel Dr. Shadow. _ And in his head, Dr. Shadow looks an awful lot like a certain black-coated and very real enemy.  _ Mac got that network analyst to confess when he pretended to be Murdoc. _ Bozer doesn’t want to go that far under, not after seeing the nightmares it left Mac with, but he can scratch the surface. “You understand me?”

“Bozer, stop.” Leanna shakes her head, but he can tell she’s genuinely a little scared of what he’s turned himself into. 

“I can't stop, Leanna. Not until you give me what I want.” His fingers curl around the back of the chair. “Where I come from, they have ways of making people like you talk. And believe me, your pretty face won’t be so pretty when this is all over.”

“Oh, you really think I’m pretty?” Her lips quirk in a small smile and despite the situation Bozer can’t help but be impressed that she actually used a movie line in an interrogation session.  _ Jack would be so proud. _

He also really hopes she’s not about to snap those cuffs and turn the interrogation on _him_ the way the Black Widow did in the movie she grabbed that line _from._ _She’s not playing me, is she? Making_ me _reveal secrets?_

“No more games. One way or another, this ends. Right now.” And then there’s a buzz and the door swings open. Glover steps inside, her face as close to a smile as Bozer thinks it can ever get.

“Well done, Ms. Martin. You'll make an excellent spy yet. Despite some intense social pressure techniques by Mr. Bozer, you went 24 hours without giving up your code word.”

“She was about to, though. You know she was. Do I get partial credit?” Bozer asks hopefully.  _ It was worth a shot. Another five minutes and I’d have had her. _

Glover scoffs. “Partial credit does not exist in the field, Mr. Bozer, so partial credit does not exist in training.” She turns back to Leanna, pulling out the key and releasing her from the cuffs. “Great job. I'm impressed.” 

Leanna stands up, then immediately lurches, stiff from sitting and probably weak from dehydration and exhaustion. Bozer catches her with an arm around her waist, and she smiles weakly at him. “That was the longest day of my life. I didn't really know what to expect from interrogation training, but I never thought it'd be this intense.” 

“Ms. Martin, you have three hours. Shower, nap, grab a bite, whatever you want. The time is yours. Then it's your turn to ask the questions and Mr. Bozer will take his turn in the chair.” Leanna walks out, still limping slightly, and Glover turns to Boze, her eyes glittering with the same kind of assessing stare he remembers Thornton turning on him the first time he saw the Phoenix for what it really was.  _ Everyone underestimates me. _

When the door latch clicks, Glover steps up to him, and Bozer tries hard not to back down from her stare. “I'm about to give you your code word. Do not, under any circumstances, reveal this word. If you do, your career in the Clandestine Services is over.”

“So, no pressure, right? What's the word?” Bozer already has a plan, just say  _ random  _ words the whole twenty-four hours or until his voice gives out.  _ I’ll just keep stalling.  _

“Guillotine.” 

He shudders. “Well, that's not foreboding at all.”

And then two huge men in grey shirts walk through the door, grab Bozer’s arms, and force him down into the chair, snapping his hands into cuffs. He fights back a shiver at the mental image of Mac in a room like this, years ago, with no promise that everything would be over in twenty-four hours.  _ His nightmare lasted two years. _

Glover walks out of the room, turning in the doorway. “Good luck. Time starts now.”

_ I’ve pulled longer all nighters in high school. And film shoots. This is nothing...right? _

* * *

CARSON’S LAB. SOMEWHERE IN RURAL PENNSYLVANIA

LAME PLACE TO HIDE STOLEN NERVE GAS

There are a lot of things Jack misses about having Riley with them in the field. He misses their weird inside jokes, the snarky banter, deliberately messing up computer terminology to get her riled up. But right now, what he misses is her seemingly endless supply of snack food. She has chips, candy bars, and chocolate stashed in literally everything she owns. He still can’t forget the night they crashed a gala dinner and she somehow managed to get ten of the best hors d'oeuvres on the buffet into her tiny little clutch purse.  _ Which we were both very grateful for when we got stuck in that time-lock vault overnight.  _

Mac, unfortunately, carries much less edible things around.  _ Can’t snack on paperclips and gum wrappers.  _ “Getting hungry,” Jack complains, twirling around in a lab chair. “Getting hungry. Hey, you don’t think our evil scientist buddy will mind if we raid the food-safe fridge over there, since he ain’t coming back anytime soon? I mean, it would be a shame to let whatever he’s got in there go to waste.”

Mac just shrugs. Jack opens the freezer and mentally curses the three bottles of water, a Red Bull, and a package of wasabi peas.  _ I’m almost desperate enough to eat them, but those on an empty stomach is asking for disaster.  _

He glares at the still-locked freezer. “Should've known this was gonna take forever.”

Mac gestures to his pencils-and-wire contraption. “It's a brute force code breaker. It's trying every possible number combination in succession. We knew this was gonna take awhile.” 

“Brute force? You want to see brute force? Let me shoot the lock off that thing, go a whole lot faster.” Jack just wants to grab that gas and get out of here.  _ The more time we take, the more time something has to go really really wrong. _

“And if you accidentally hit the canister of VX gas, you and Mac will be a whole lot deader.” Matty still sounds pissy. He wonders what’s eating at her today. 

“You questioning my marksmanship skills, Matty?” She doesn’t dignify that with a response, and Jack goes back to bugging Mac. The kid’s still fixating on that takeout menu and his brain is probably running through possibilities as fast as his code breaker gadget is running through number combinations. “Okay, I got another one. You ready?” Mac nods. “If you could have a meal right now, with anyone, living or dead, who would it be? Go.”

Mac frowns, forehead wrinkling up, finally thinking about something other than James’s weird mind games. “Okay. Erwin Schrodinger.”

“Who?” That name sounds vaguely familiar...Jack thinks Jill might have said that was the name of one of her cats. 

“Erwin Schrodinger.”

“Living or dead?” Jack asks.  

“Actually, kind of both.” Mac chuckles. “He was an Austrian physicist who, uh…”

Jack rolls his eyes. “Spare me the science mumbo-jumbo, please. My brain can’t take it this early in the morning. Living or dead, please. Why do you got to sprinkle nerd juice over every single game we play?” 

“Okay,” Mac rolls his eyes. “What about you? Who would you have lunch with?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah. That's easy, man. Han Solo. Boom.”

“I thought the person had to be living or dead, Jack,” Riley cuts in over comms.  _ Sure, horn in on my conversations, when you don’t even have the decency to be here in person with food. _ If she  _ was _ here he wouldn’t have to resort to playing games to take his mind off his stomach.  _ I really am a Wookie at heart. _

“Well, he’s dead now...Long time ago in a galaxy far far away, but ya know?”  

Riley’s voice is in his ear again, but it sounds like the joking mood is gone. “Guys, I just lost satellite feed of your location. Everything in the area’s been knocked out.” 

Cage speaks up as well. “I've got a van parking outside the building. No license plate.”

“Can you see the driver?” Jack asks. 

“And all his buddies. Sending pics to Phoenix now. Mac, Jack, you've got what looks like a heavily armed merc squad heading your way.” 

_ I knew this op was gonna go sideways.  _ Jack stands up, grabbing his gun. “Is there any way to get your pencil pusher to push those pencils any faster?”

Mac’s eyes are wide, he’s definitely starting to get freaked out. “Um...no.” 

“Well, looks like we're gonna have to do this the Jack Dalton way. Step aside.” Jack motions the kid out of the way. 

And then there’s a beep and a green light, and Mac’s holding up his hands. “Wait, wait, wait, wait.” The lock clicks open, and he darts inside the freezer, stepping back out with the canister in his hand. 

“Nice job kiddo,” Jack says, and then they hurry toward the back door. “Hey Ri, we got a clear exit out the back? I don’t really want to run into our mystery baddies on the way outta here.”

“Actually, they’re not so mysterious anymore. I used the photos Cage sent to ID our uninvited guests. The leader is Dev Singh. He's ex-MARCOS. Spent some time as a freelance merc. Now he works for Annisa Chandra.”  _ Oooh, another big no bueno.  _ Chandra’s an Indonesian extremist, linked to the murder of a dozen police in Bali, at least four bombings in Jakarta. One of Jack’s CIA buddies was on a team that went up against her. None of them came home. 

“I’ve kept an eye on her work,” Cage says. “She was too crazy for even Tennant to want to team up with. She must've heard that the VX was up for sale, sent her mercs in to steal it.”

“Well, that’s one way to cut down on the cost of being an international terrorist,” Mac says, grimacing.  

Jack glances at the green cylinder Mac is shoving into his knapsack. “If there's anything Annisa Chandra should not have, it's this. Good thing we got it first.” 

“CIA's been trying to shut down her group for over a decade,” Matty says, as if Jack and Riley need reminding. “This may be the best shot we ever get at her. You two, put that canister back. Let Chandra's people take it.”

Mac looks up, stopping in his tracks. “I'm sorry. Did you say "put it back"?”  _ Okay, Matty, I know you’re a little on edge today, but seriously? This is beyond crazy. _

“Yes. I know how dangerous a move this is. But with an actionable lead on Chandra, this is the play. She must have a plan to deploy it. Which means that if the mercs find the VX missing, they'll bail on their objective and go dark.” 

Cage jumps in. “But if we let them steal the VX, they'll proceed according to plan, and we can track them back to Chandra and sweep up her whole operation.”

Jack sighs. “For the record: this plan sucks. Matty, are you sure about this?”

“I am. Put that canister back, now.”

There’s just one little problem with Matty’s brilliantly insane idea. “We're not gonna have time to break into the freezer again, Matty.” He hopes that’s an insurmountable obstacle. Unfortunately, Mac, in typical stroke-of-genius-at-worst-possible-time fashion, starts typing in the passcode. Jack can hear him mumbling under his breath. 

“Three, zero, one, nine, two.” He shrugs as the door opens. “I memorized the code.”

“Okay, stick it in there and let's go.” Jack flinches when he hears radio chatter in the hallway, and the second Mac slams the door he drags the kid behind one of the science tables, hoping it’s good enough cover. 

“How are we doing, guys?” Matty asks.  

“We have company, but at least we put the VX back.” Jack watches one of the mercs pull a little explosive charge out of a bag and stick it to the door. _ Man, I shoulda shot the lock off, and we’d have been gone before these goons showed up and wrecked our perfectly good and safe plan. _

He glances at Mac. “Maybe we should we loan them your pencil thingy.” And then there’s an explosion, and the goons rush in, grab the canister, and hurry out. 

“Okay, Matty,” Mac says, and Jack can tell the kid is as uncomfortable with this whole thing as he is. “Chandra's guys have the super deadly nerve gas, so I guess everything's going according to plan.” 

“You're not the only one that gets to come up with crazy plans, blondie. The VX is a big threat, but Chandra is a much bigger one.” Matty sounds more like her CIA self, cool and calculating. Jack knows she’s doing what she always does, her job is seeing the big picture and acting accordingly. But he’s been watching his kid handling something that could kill him slowly and painfully, and he doesn’t like the thought of taking any more risks with it.  _ I didn’t like him touching it, let alone us trying to get it  _ back _ from these goons. _

“And FYI, we could still get that nerve gas back if you change your mind. We could take them.” 

“No.” Matty’s voice is scarily firm. “Give the mercs plenty of space. This whole plan goes belly up if you're spotted.”

“Oh, we're giving them plenty of space,” Mac says sarcastically. “So much space, I don't see how we're gonna follow them.”

“You're not. Cage, you still got eyes on the VX?” 

“Yeah. And the gentlemen stealing it.”

“Good. Stay on the VX, and don't take your eyes off of it. Mac, Jack, find another ride and then catch up with Cage.” 

Jack stands up slowly, trying to avoid knocking over any bottles of unidentified chemicals.  _ Not giving something else a chance to poison me. _ “Ooh. You mean steal a car. I like that.”

“Oh, and from here on, no comms. These guys killed our satellites and the lab's security cameras within seconds. They're pros. We can't risk them scanning radio channels and picking up our chatter.”

“Copy that. We're going dark.” He hears Cage’s connection sizzle out. 

“Actually, they can't monitor the entire cellular network. It's way too big. Which means we can use standard phones, and I can track your cell signals.” Jack mentally thanks Riley for the first good news he’s heard since their sat signal went kaput. 

“This better work, boss.” And then he switches off his comms too. 

* * *

INTERROGATION ROOM

THERE IS NO SENSE OF TIME HERE

_ Is this what Mac felt like? When the cops took him in? _ Bozer wonders how long they made him sit alone before anyone came in to talk to him.  _ He pled guilty, but they probably still wanted to know more about the rest of his vigilante activities. _ He can’t imagine they stopped at him confessing to Ramsay’s death. 

_ No matter what they threw at him, no matter what deals they offered, he never turned me in as an accomplice. _ He knows the cops probably suspected him of having help. But Mac stubbornly stuck to his story that he was working alone. 

He’s revised his plan of just saying random words, because that code word is the first thing in his mind and he’s afraid he might accidentally blurt it out. So he’s opting for trying to play mind games like Cage does. 

The door opens and Leanna steps in. She still looks tired, but she also looks determined. Still, he’s faced a man he thinks might be the devil himself, and Leanna has nothing on Murdoc. 

He leans back in his chair a little and laughs. “Give me all you got, lady. Nothing you throw at me is gonna stick. I'm like Teflon. Except my coating isn't poisonous, and doesn't slough off a little in your food every time you cook in me.” He frowns. “Wait, just the first part. The second part is something Tony always used to say.”

Leanna sits down, her smile fake and conniving. “Is someone getting a little woozy? Lack of food and sleep will do that to you. How about I get you something to eat?”

“Nah, I'm good. Eating is for chumps.”  _ Good thing Mac didn’t hear you say that. _ He has a hard enough time getting his housemate to eat enough to keep him alive. 

_ It really is a good thing they didn’t put him in this training. _ Bozer’s pretty sure locking Mac in a room like this would make him completely shut down.  _ He’d have nightmares for a month. _ And nothing is off limits in this room. Mac could have been subjected to even more reminders of his past. 

Leanna has no idea who she’s dealing with, and her next choice of attack shows it. “You sure? Not even a burger from that place you like in town? Fresh, juicy beef, thick slice of cheese, and all those grilled onions?” 

“It's gonna take a lot more than the promise of a burger, even an insanely delicious burger, to break me.” He grins. “What else you got?”  _ I’ve been through hell and back a dozen times over. She can’t break me with a little hunger. _

“Hey, so,” Leanna leans forward, looking not at Bozer but at the table. “I know this is bad timing, but all this talk about food, it's got me thinking. You know, maybe, while this is over, we can go grab a burger.” She slides her hands across the table, twisting her fingers into his. “Together.” 

He frowns, definitely thrown for a loop by this one. “Wait. Is this part of the…”

She sighs, shaking her head and looking up at him again, almost defeatedly. “Look, I'm not supposed to tell you this, but everyone else has already given up their code word. So we can stop this whenever you want, and you'll just get second place, right behind me. That doesn't sound so bad, does it?”

“That sounds just like…” He pauses, and then laughs. “Lesson four from our interrogation seminar: ‘Offer Incentives and Remove Obstacles’.”

“You know you’re not leaving this room until you give me that word, right?” Leanna says, her voice changing into a near snarl. “And no one is going to stop me from doing whatever I have to to get it.” She stands up and walks around to his side of the table. “Have you ever seen what happens to someone when they can’t breathe?” Her hands slide around his throat, not so tight they’re cutting off his breathing, but definitely a threat. He’s pretty sure he probably shouldn’t find her hand strength and gun calluses attractive right now. 

“You can’t kill me. Because if you kill me, you’re never gonna get that word,” Bozer says, feeling the words struggle past the grip on his throat. “You want to break me? You're gonna have to raise your game.” 

Leanna releases his neck, and he leans forward, sucking in full breaths again.  She walks to the door and pulls it open. “Remember. You asked for it.”

And then she’s gone and he’s alone in the room, aside from the lingering smell of gun oil and vanilla bean lotion her hands left on his neck. 

* * *

Jack is really in the mood to punch someone in the face right now. Especially this clearly power-drunk business executive with a chip on his shoulder and an attitude that needs a readjustment.

“And I said "You know what, Bob? I don't like your face. So now the price is double." You should've seen his expression.” Jack slams into the guy’s shoulder a lot harder than necessary for the thing Mac turned his phone into to scan this guy’s chip key.  _ At least my phone will still work after all this. _

“Oh, man, I'm sorry. My bad.” He holds up his hands placatingly, wanting nothing more than to plant a fist in this dude’s nose. 

“Watch it, Gramps. You almost made me drop my phone.”  _ Okay, that’s it, I wanna deck him. _ Jack’s winding up for the punch when he remembers that this probably isn’t the time to get into it with some random dude. 

“Yeah, well, two left feet. You know how it is.” He gives the guy his best death glare. “And "Gramp" is a little strong, but you have a nice day anyway, okay?” 

“Whatever,” The man’s already ignoring him again, back on his phone call. As he walks away Jack can hear him ranting about selfish, inconsiderate people.  _ Take a look in the mirror sometime, jerk. _

“Yeah, whatever.” Jack picks up his phone again, glancing across the street. “Oh, Mac, please tell me your little doodad isn't working. I want to steal this car old-school style and send this punk to the dentist right now.”

Mac steps out from under a tree, smiling. “Sorry to disappoint you, but my little doodad worked just fine.” He hits a button and Jack hears the engine start. “The car is unlocked and idling. So it looks like no "punks" are going to the dentist today.” 

“The day is still young.”

Jack slides into the driver’s seat, taking a moment to appreciate the finer points of the Dodge Challenger they just boosted. Mac shakes his head at Jack’s obvious appreciation of the interior, setting his phone on the center console. “All right. Thanks to Riley, we are now tracking Cage's cell signal. Looks like she's just over five miles ahead of us.”

“Well, not for long.” Jack peels them out with a rubber-burning screech that would have made his street-racing alter ego proud. 

Mac stares out the window as the miles flash by. “Do you think it’s stupid?” He asks suddenly. 

“Do I think what’s stupid?” Jack asks. “This whole damn plan? Yeah, I think ‘hand over the nerve gas to a crazy terrorist’ is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard.”

“No, not this op,” Mac says. “Looking for James. Do you think he  _ is _ leading me into a trap?”

Jack shakes his head. “I don’t know, man. He coulda killed you at that cabin if he wanted to. He coulda killed you before that. I think he wants you alive, I just don’t like what he probably wants. Cause I doubt he’s here to be like Elwood and say he cleaned up his act and wants to patch things up.” 

Mac nods. “You think he wants me to work with him.” Jack sighs. Riley told him she’d mentioned James to Elwood, and the man completely flipped.  _ He thought Mac was dangerous.  _ Jack hasn’t told the kid about any of that yet.  _ He doesn’t need to think that people still don’t believe he was innocent. _

“He’s gonna be real disappointed when his little game ends with you puttin’ him in cuffs instead of joining him on the dark side.” Jack imitates Darth Vader breathing, the irony of Mac’s situation is not lost on him. 

“But what if I do?” Mac asks quietly. “What if I turn out to be just like him? If whatever made him turn can make me turn too?” 

“Mac, you are the most kind, generous, selfless person I know. Nothing that’s happened to you has changed that. And I know that nothing James could do would make you lose that either.” He grins. “In my experience, leopards don’t change their stripes, for good or bad.”

“That’s tigers, Jack.” Mac sounds genuinely frustrated, turning away from his contemplation of the scenery to glare at Jack for butchering the English language again. 

“I know, dude. I’m doing it on purpose, gettin’ you all riled up to get your mind outta that place it goes when you’re thinkin’ about Darth James.”

“Darth James? Really?” But Mac’s grinning. “You have to make everything about Star Wars, don’t you?”

“Otherwise what’s the point?” Jack asks. “And dude, before I forget, Riley’s totally with me on the lightsabers-against-zombies thing. Ask her.”  _ He can argue with me, he can’t argue with Riley as easily. It’s two against one now. _

“I’m not making you a lightsaber.” Mac groans. “I don’t trust you with one.” 

“Oh come  _ on, _ young Padawn, you’re talking to a Jedi master here.” Jack cuts expertly into a gap in traffic, keeping one eye on the blinking dot that shows Sam’s location. And then, suddenly, it goes black.

“Oh hell no.” This mission didn’t need to go any more sideways. Jack floors the accelerator as Mac starts calling Phoenix.  _ This is going from bad to worse real fast. _

* * *

SOMEWHERE IN RURAL PENNSYLVANIA

SAM MISSES LA TRAFFIC

Most people hate congested streets. Bumper to bumper stresses them out, and they always talk about wanting to move someplace quieter. But for spies, that kind of environment can work in their favor. Sam would take the crowded LA streets for a tail any day, over this open Pennsylvania highway that makes her far too obvious to that team of thieves. She’s trying to keep two cars between her and the van, but  _ finding _ two cars less than a half-mile apart is a challenge out here. 

And if trying to stay out of sight on the highway is hard, but if these guys turn off, she’s going to have even more trouble.  _ Right now it just looks like I’m headed the same way. But these guys are pros. They saw me merge in after them. If I follow them off they’ll definitely know that something’s wrong. Singh hasn’t stayed in the wind this long by being stupid. _

When the van takes an exit, Sam takes it, but quickly speeds up, passes the van, and keeps them in the rearview.  _ Eventually I’ll have to come up with a new plan, but I can’t afford to lose eyes on the canister. _ She sees the van slow, and then take what looks like a deliberate turn, into an abandoned factory. She’s been made.  _ They recognized that I was still tailing them, just in a more unconventional way.  _

And now Singh is doing exactly what she would have done under those circumstances.  _ If I don’t turn, I lose them. If I do, they know I’m following them. _ She has two impossible choices, and both of them end badly.  _ Either I lose eyes on the VX, or I let them know someone’s onto them.  _

She turns on the blinker.  _ We need time, and we need to stall their plan. _ It’s a gamble, and a long shot at that, but Sam’s never been one to back down from a challenge. 

She turns into a side road where she can turn the car around, then drives back to the place it looks like the van pulled off the road at. She pulls into the parking lot and puts on the brakes. She can’t see the van anywhere.  _ Ok, the game’s begun. _

And then the van pulls up beside her car, door sliding open and guns clicking. She raises her hands slowly, stepping out of the car, dropping her phone, and deliberately smashing it under her heel. “Hello, boys.”

Two of the men grab her, muscling her to her knees and zip-tying her hands, dragging her into the van before riddling the car with bullet holes, blowing out the two tires on their side. She barely has time to glance up before Dev Singh’s fist collides with her cheek. 

“Who are you?” the man snaps. “And why were you following us?”

“Oh, still swimming in your little fishbowl? Not ready to play with the sharks?” She grins, tasting the blood in her mouth. 

“What do you mean?”

“You wouldn’t be asking me who I am if you had any real weight. You have no idea what I can do to you and every member of your team.”

Singh frowns, waving his gun in her face.  _ If he thinks that’s going to scare me, he’d better think again.  _ “I think you’re forgetting something. I captured  _ you. _ I am the one holding a gun to your head, right now, and my patience is wearing thin.”

“If you want what's in my head, putting a bullet in it isn't gonna help. So why don't you holster that gun, and we can trade intel? I'll tell you who I am, and you can tell me when you plan on releasing the gas in Grand Central Station.”

Singh looks shaken, she’s cataloging all the little tells and nervous twitches in his face. “Who told you our plan?”

“You did. Just now.” She smirks, glancing down near his feet.  _ Amateurs.  _ “Bag full of New York City subway cards, and, no offense, but you don't seem like the sightseeing type. So, if the subway is your target, I figure you'll go big. Either Penn Station or Grand Central.” Singh frowns. “Fifty-fifty odds. I took a guess.”

“Perhaps I should find you front row seats in Grand Central.”

“Front row seats to a comedy of errors?” She lets her smile become pure victorious spite. “The canister, the one you stole, it's a fake.”

“You expect me to believe that?” He’s talking proud, but she can tell he’s second-guessing himself. 

“I used to work for Scorpion. Then Tennant screwed up, got himself chucked in a dark hole, and The whole thing fell apart. I went freelance, found myself a new crew.” Sam knows that the best lies are the ones founded on scraps of truth. Nothing she’s telling him is an outright falsehood.  _ I even only came back to the field after Tennant got put away.  _ “And when my employer heard about the VX, she sent my team in to steal it.” 

“But you were too late.” 

“Actually, we got there first.” Cage shrugs. “My boss decided she wanted Chandra and the gas. So we stole the real gas and let you steal a fake.” 

“Why?”

“So that we could track you back to whatever hole you crawled out of and take out the competition.” Her sardonic smile is intended to cut, to belittle. It’s been a while since she’s intentionally been so vicious, and it’s scary how fast that person will slide back into place. “Don't believe me? Crack it open, take a whiff. Or wait and see what Chandra does to you when you release a canister of harmless argon gas in Grand Central Station.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“I hear Chandra pays her operators very, very well. A lot more than my current boss does.” She smiles, that cold empty smile of a mercenary. “I'm looking to make a change.”

“Scorpion, you said?” Singh frowns. “Ever work with a Lance Kido?”

Sam raises an eyebrow. “Twice. Lisbon and São Paulo. I was there when he almost got killed with the car bomb, still has the scars on his right side.” She glances at him. “So if you were hoping to expose me as a fraud, you’re out of luck.”  _ It’s one of the oldest tricks in the spy game, and if you aren’t legitimate then it’s a game of chance and trying to know what kind of person you’re dealing with. But when you don’t even have to think twice... _ It’s rare that Sam finds herself able to genuinely answer one of these interrogations. 

Singh turns his back on her. It’s clear that he doesn’t want to believe what she’s saying, doesn’t want to admit that he got conned. She has to make him believe that that pride will be his failure. “What do you think Chandra would rather hear? That you got out-maneuvered by another set of thieves but still managed to succeed in the attack, or that you refused to trust a willing informant and failed?” She sees his shoulders tense. “You know, the longer you take debating whether you trust me or not, the further away the real VX gets.”

He spins around and she earns another backhand to the face for her trouble, the ring on Singh’s hand slicing open her cheek. “We're not debating. We don't trust you.”

“Yeah, well, you should, because I'm the only person who can get you the gas. The real gas. So you let me go, I'll get the gas, I'll bring it to you.” She shrugs. “What do you have to lose? You think someone like me is gonna go to the cops and tell them you’re gonna hit Grand Central? Or do you believe me that I have the real VX, and you think I’m going to cut my losses and run with it?” She sees a muscle in his jaw twitch. She’s set the hook, now she just has to reel him in. Patiently. “I’m not looking to lose out on an opportunity like this getting dropped in my lap. Call it my buy-in to my new employer's group.”

“Why should I believe you’re telling the truth? That you’ll actually bring me the gas?”

“Because if I don't, Chandra will kill us both. So, do we have a deal or not?”

* * *

Bozer is half-dozing in his chair when the door lock buzzes. He blinks at Leanna, walking in. She’s carrying a small file satchel under one arm.

“You look terrible,” She says bluntly.

“Thank you,” He says sarcastically. “And yeah, I  _ feel _ terrible, but I bet I'm in a better mood than you. You've been gone for so long you must be just about out of time by now.” 

“I am. And that's why it's time to change tack. I hope you understand.” She reaches into the leather pouch as she sets it down by her chair, pulling out a photograph. Bozer flinches at the sight of it.  _ God, no. _

“Leanna? What are you doing?” 

“Raising my game.” She raises an eyebrow, then sets her phone on the table and presses play on something on the screen. 

“Hello? Yes? Please, we need help.” It’s a woman’s voice, shaking, tinny through the speakers. “There was a shooting, there’s a boy here, I think he’s dying. Oh God there’s so much blood.” Her voice breaks. “We need an ambulance, please. We’re on Townsend. The number...I don’t know...please, hurry.” Leanna presses pause. 

Bozer blinks. He never heard the 911 call for Jerry’s death. But there’s no way this isn’t it.  _ “Malone’s” is on Townsend. _ The coffeehouse where Jerry and his friends had a standing Friday night performance slot. 

He swallows hard. He’s been back there a few times lately, checking on the memorial. He’s not sure who’s keeping it up, but it’s always painted neatly and there are fresh flowers some days. He wonders if one of the other band members is the one responsible.  _ I feel bad that I kind of pushed them away after it all. They weren’t to blame for what happened to him, and I know they felt like it was their fault, because he was coming to play a gig with them.  _

“Jeremiah Bozer died in Los Angeles over seven years ago.” Leanna pushes the photo of Jerry, holding his first real electric guitar, with Wilt hugging him and smiling, across the table. “Caught in the crossfire of a drive-by gang shooting on his way to meet up with his cover band.” She lays an LAPD case file on the table as well. “Everyone knew it was a Meridas/La Ola turf war, but no suspects were ever arrested.” Bozer doesn’t have to look at that file, he knows everything in it. He lived it. He still remembers Mama crying in the station when the cops told her they didn’t have enough evidence to charge anyone for the crime. “Your family demanded justice, and they were denied.” 

Bozer can’t tell where this is going. “You’ll have to do better than trying to make me relive my brother’s death to get me to talk.” It’s painful, yes, but it’s over. It’s done and nothing can change; he’s learned to live around the hole in his life, even if he mostly avoids touching the ragged edges.  _ Is she going to threaten my sister? Say she’s going to take her away from me too? _ He knows nothing is off limits in this room.  _ That’s one thing that truly scares me about field ops. What if someone goes after my family to get to me? _ Riley said her mother was kidnapped a couple years ago, and last Christmas Bozer himself got snatched to try and force Mac to build a bomb. He knows Leanna won’t be allowed to actually hurt Deja, but what if she’s brought her here? What if Deja finds out what he really does? 

“Oh, this isn’t about his death, Wilt. This is about what happened afterward.” Leanna pulls another file out of her satchel, and Bozer flinches at the photo on the front. “I know who your friend ‘Mac’ is, Bozer.” Leanna’s voice is cold. “I wonder what Glover would think if she knew that you’re in close contact with a convicted felon.” 

“If you’ve done that much digging, you should also know…”

“That the charges for murder and terrorism were dropped this May.” Leanna doesn’t bat an eyelash. “He’s still on the hook for arson and destruction of property, and obstruction of justice.” Her eyes are cold and calm. “And I know you helped him do it.” 

* * *

Mac stares at the black patch on the phone screen like he can somehow magically make Cage’s signal reappear. He takes a deep breath, trying not to let himself panic.  _ Maybe she was afraid they were tracking her. Maybe she just shut it off. Maybe it ran out of battery. _ There are plenty of innocuous reasons for a cell phone signal to go out. Jack’s has on multiple occasions when Mac’s turned it into some new gadget.

“Do you think…”

“I’m not gonna think anything until we get to that last location.” Jack’s hands are white-knuckled on the steering wheel. “We can’t do anything from here.” Mac already called Matty and Riley. They’re aware of the situation, Riley is trying to get some kind of visual back, and apparently Matty is explaining the whole thing to Patty. Mac wonders if she bothered to clear that change of plans with Oversight before enacting it, and he’s willing to bet not.  _ We don’t always clear every deviation anyway. But something major, like handing over a canister of nerve gas… _

“Mac. Hey. Stop worrying yourself into a nervous wreck. That ain’t gonna help Cage.” Mac looks down at the mindlessly twisted wire in his hands, he pulled a paperclip apart but hasn’t turned it into anything recognizable. 

“I know Sam can handle herself,” Mac says. He’s watched her take out whole teams of bad guys, and he knows this freelance merc isn’t even close to her league when it comes to mind games. But the thought that now they don’t know where that nerve gas is is terrifying.  _ I literally had it in my hands.  _ He knows it’s irrational, but if that gas ends up being used, he’ll blame himself.  _ I could have said no to Matty.  _ He knows that would have had its own set of terrible consequences, but definitely not as terrible as thousands of innocent people dying because a terrorist got hold of the VX. 

Just as quickly, his brain latches onto another thought, and he pulls Jack’s dogtags out of the collar of his shirt, threading the chain through his fingers.  _ It’s not your fault. Matty gave you a direct order. And no matter what those men do with that gas, you didn’t make them do it. _ He swallows, feeling a tiny bit of the tension leave his body. 

He looks over at Jack, giving the man a weak smile. The understanding in Jack’s eyes tells him he knows exactly what Mac’s been doing.  _ He knows me well enough to know that I’m going to try and blame myself for whatever happens. _

“You’re doin’ good, kiddo,” Jack says. And then Mac’s phone pings. He fishes it out of his pocket, glancing at it. 

“It’s Jill. She says she can’t find anything suspicious about that Canton Palace place. Apparently it was torn down a couple years ago when the owner’s son sold it after his parents died.” He shrugs. “Nothing seemed unusual to the demolition crew, and she can’t find any ties between the owners and any criminal activity, much less any connection to James.” 

“I can’t believe we went all the way to Montana for a dead end.” Jack sighs. “I’m sorry, kid.” 

“It doesn’t make sense,” Mac mumbles. “Why would he go to all this trouble and then leave a clue that leads nowhere?”

“Maybe he didn’t know the place got demoed,” Jack says. “He’s been in hiding, not like he can waltz around San Fran and visit a favorite hangout.” 

“He went to the trouble of making sure I found that exact cafe in Paris,” Mac says. “Every clue has been deliberate. This has to mean something.” He glances at the pictures on his phone again.  _ What were you trying to tell me? _

“Okay, we’re here.” Jack pulls off the road into an abandoned parking lot, and Mac flinches when he sees the car parked there. It’s the one they were all in this morning, and it’s all shot up. Jack pulls out his phone and dials Matty. “Yeah, it's Jack. We found Cage's car, but it’s Swiss cheese and she’s long gone. No blood though.” 

As usual, Mac can clearly hear the voice on the other end of the line. “So, now the mercs have Cage and the nerve gas, and we have no idea where they are. Riley, I need my satellites up, I need my eye in the sky, and I need it now.” Jack switches the phone on speaker just as Riley chimes in. 

“I just found a hardwired security camera across the street from Cage's last-known position. This is from ten minutes ago.” A video pops up onscreen, as Sam steps out of the car, is forced to the ground, and dragged into the van. She does something odd with her foot right before the men grab her, and when Mac looks down at the ground, he can see what. She smashed her own phone. _ That’s odd. _ He would assume that the mercs would do that, to keep people from following them, but this looks like Sam had some kind of plan.

“Looks like they’re heading north,” Jack says. “Let’s go get Cage back.” 

They’re breaking the speed limit by at least fifteen miles an hour, and Mac is praying they don’t run into cops, when his phone rings. It’s Matty.

“Guys, good news, Riley got our satellite back up.” 

“Well, kind of just hacked into someone else's,” Riley clarifies. 

“Potato, po-tah-to, Ri. Good work.” Mac smiles. Jack’s been telling Riley more often when he notices she’s done something even remotely awesome.  _ I guess, from what they both have been trying to avoid telling me, they were struggling a little, getting kind of distant. _ He knows it was partially because of him, but he’s refusing to blame himself for that too. Jack and Riley both wouldn’t want that. “We still on the mercs' tail?” he asks. 

“Yeah. And if Jack keeps driving that fast, you should have eyes on the mercs and the VX in a few minutes.” 

Mac’s watching the road ahead intently, but he almost doesn’t see the oddly shaped lump in the middle of it until it’s too late. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!” He shouts. “Stop! Jack!” Jack’s already putting on the brakes, and the car screeches to a halt inches from the body huddled up in the middle of the street. Mac and Jack both jump out of the car and run over to them, Mac can already tell from the messy blond hair that it’s Sam. Jack kneels down next to her while Mac starts cutting the zipties on her wrists and ankles. 

“Cage, you all right?” Jack asks. 

“I'm fine.” She sits up, rubbing at her chafed wrists. 

“Wait, you just got Cage back?” Matty asks, Mac can still hear his phone inside the car, he left his door open. 

Sam walks over, limping slightly, and picks up the phone. “Yeah, I kind of got myself back.” She grins and winks at Jack, and Mac has the feeling his hunch was right, she had some kind of crazy plan for getting captured.  _ Why is today the day everyone decides to take insane risks? _ He suddenly wonders if this is how the rest of his team feels about  _ him _ on a regular basis. 

“That's very impressive, but where's the can of Mountain Dew?” Jack asks. 

“Well, that’s kind of a funny story, they kind of think you have it.” 

“Wait, you convinced them that the canister they stole is a fake?” Mac shakes his head.  _ That’s almost as crazy as Matty asking us to put it back to catch Chandra.  _

“It's not like they can crack it open and double-check, can they?” Sam chuckles, then winces, she’s got a split lip and a gashed cheek. “He took more convincing than I expected, I guess playing the Scorpion card doesn’t really have the pull it used to.” 

“And so now you're supposed to bring them the real VX?” Jack asks. 

“I've got 30 minutes till they send coordinates for the meet. And so now, we just need a fake canister convincing enough to fool these guys.”

“Jack, can you get started on that?” Matty asks. Jack gives Mac a blank stare of  _ what do I do now _ , and then Matty speaks up again. “Kidding. Blondie, do your thing.” 

* * *

CARSON’S LAB

THEY’RE BACK

Sam flinches at the sight of the destroyed freezer when they walk into the lab.  _ Those mercs will do anything, even something risky, to get their hands on that gas. _

Mac starts walking around and muttering to himself, and Jack pulls a battered, scorched swivel chair out of a corner and sits down. “Hey Mac, why don’t you tell Cage about your Iron-on Shredder buddy?”

Sam frowns, but clearly Mac knows what’s going on, because he barely stops for a second from grabbing things off shelves. “You mean Erwin Schroedinger?” He plops several cans down on a table.

“I already know about the cat in the box, Jack,” Cage says. 

“Wait, I thought that was a Dr. Seuss book.”

“No, that’s Cat in the Hat,” Mac rattles off, he’s actually moving  _ faster _ while correcting Jack’s blatant inaccuracies. Sam’s seen a lot of field teams, but she’s never seen anything that compares with the unique dynamic that is Mac and Jack. It sounds like one of them is going to snap, at any second, but the reality is that they ground each other. Clearly, Jack’s chatter helps Mac focus. And Sam has the feeling the same is true for Jack. 

“Nice.” Mac surveys his stack of pilfered ingredients. “I got everything here I need to make fake VX gas.”

“What's it gonna be really?” Jack asks, he stops spinning and is clearly actually interested.  _ He’s a lot more than the dumb jock he pretends to be. _ Jack may not be Mac-level smart, but he didn’t make it in the field this long by being an idiot. 

“Homemade tear gas.” Mac grins.

“Ooh your specialty,” Jack chuckles. “Wait, you don’t have chili powder this time. Cage, you missed something cool in Columbia. Or were we technically in Ecuador at that point?”

“Technically Ecuador,” Mac says, still measuring and pouring ingredients. 

“Well, you missed MRE tear gas, which was pretty awesome,” Jack says, starting to spin again. “When Zarate’s border guards stopped us…”

Jack continues his tale of their escape from the border patrol, which Sam is inclined to think is pretty heavily embellished, while Mac works. 

When he’s finished, he holds the canister out to Sam. “When you get the real VX, signal me, I'll trigger the tear gas and then Jack and I will swoop in with the cavalry.”

“Ooh, there's gonna be cavalry?” Sam smiles. It still feels just a tiny bit odd to know she’s going in with backup.  _ Spending nearly eight years in an organization that believed if you weren’t good enough to get out alive alone, you weren’t worth the trouble of saving can mess with your head. _

“Yes, there is. Well, if Jack can convince the local SWAT team to give us a hand, then, yes.” Jack shoots Mac a fake offended glare. “All jokes aside, though, this is going to work. I've got your back.” 

_ I’m not the only one who was taught failure was unacceptable. _ It’s bad enough that Sam felt that pressure from a rogue agency she chose to join. It makes her furious that Mac was indoctrinated with that idea by his own father.  _ When we find James MacGyver, Jack better get in line. Because there’s a bullet in my gun with his name on it. _

* * *

Bozer swallows. His mouth is completely dry, has been for a couple hours now, but even if he wasn’t dehydrated, he knows it would be now, from sheer stress. _ How did she know? _

“Angus MacGyver spent four years as a vigilante, in LA, without being caught. No one does that alone.” Leanna leans across the table, a small smile of triumph sliding across her face. “Up until he was caught, ‘The Phoenix’ hid his identity with fairly elaborate masks. No one knows why he suddenly changed his usual MO, why that Google Street car was able to catch an image of his real face. Unless he wasn’t the one making those disguises.” 

She tracks Bozer’s gaze with her own eyes. “Angus insisted, during the entire investigation, that he never had a partner. That no one else was aware of his vigilante activities.” She frowns. “Personally, I find even  _ that _ hard to believe. Someone in that house must have noticed something. And most likely, it was you.”

“You can’t pin anything on me.” Boze insists. “I worked nights at a restaurant. If anything, I got home later than he did.” _ Only some nights. _ “I wasn’t around enough to know what he was up to.”

“I may not be able to make that stick, but that’s where the masks come in. Because someone told me about a talent for prosthetics and makeup, as I recall.” 

She lays out a handful of photos, security cameras that caught Mac when he was still letting Bozer help him with disguises.  _ Sometimes I feel guilty that I let him convince me it was getting too dangerous. Now that I know more, I know it was after he lost Pena.  _ Mac had clearly been grieving, and also a little paranoid.  _ He wanted to keep me away from the kind of life he saw a man die in. _ And ever since the police showed up at the door with a warrant for Mac’s arrest because they had a picture of him, his real face, leaving that warehouse, he’s wondered if his help could have saved Mac.

_ But even if they didn’t have the evidence, when he heard about the death at the warehouse, he probably still would have turned himself in and confessed.  _ One way or another, Mac wouldn’t have been able to deal with the guilt of thinking he was responsible for the death of a civilian. 

“And for some reason, you stopped helping him hide.” Leanna glances at him. “Did you get scared? Did he tell you he didn’t want your help anymore?”

“I don’t have to tell you anything.” Bozer half-snarls. 

“No, you don’t. But fragments of some of the masks were found at crime scenes, and I’m sure if we matched their composition to some of your other work, we’d find enough similarities to have a case.” She frowns. “Is spending the rest of your life with that kind of sentence on your record worth one little code word?”

“Last I checked, it wasn’t against the law to make masks.”

“But it is against the law to use them to help a vigilante. You could be accused of being an accessory to MacGyver’s crimes. You’re looking at prison time, Wilt. Two years  _ minimum _ in connection with all of the arson charges alone.” 

“I’ve spent the past three years wishing I’d turned myself in with him.” Bozer swallows hard, guilt tightening his throat and stinging his eyes. “He told the cops he was working alone, and I...I let them ruin his life while I walked away. I told myself it was for my mom, and my sister, so they wouldn’t lose another son...but the truth is, I didn’t have the courage he did.” Bozer takes a deep, shaky breath. “If you turn me in, it’s only what I deserve for letting him take the fall for us both.”

Leanna looks shaken.  _ Bet she didn’t expect that reaction. _ Her eyes are as full of tears as he knows his own are. Or at least it looks like it. It’s hard to tell, the whole room is blurry. “Bozer…”

“Do your worst. Lock me up, throw away the key, I don’t care. Because Mac saved my life too many times to count, he’s the only reason I’m in here today.” This isn’t about a code word anymore. This is about whether Bozer is going to turn his back on Mac again, when it really counts.  _ He got me into the Phoenix. He wouldn’t want me to wash out because I wasn’t brave when it counted. I can’t fail again. _ “No matter what you do to me, no matter what happens now, I am not going to let him down. Not again.” He can feel hot tears, burning from the dehydration, tracing down his cheeks, but his voice doesn’t shake. 

And then there’s a buzz, the door opens, and Glover steps in. “Excellent work, Mr. Bozer. You passed.” 

He lowers his head shakily onto the cool metal table as Leanna sweeps up the folders and replaces them in her bag. Like nothing ever happened. Like all of Mac’s past is only a piece of leverage. He knows she did what she had to do, but she dragged  _ Mac _ into this. And he’s not sure he can forgive her for that. 

* * *

NEW YORK

WATER TREATMENT PLANT

Despite the fact that he’s incredibly nervous, Mac does fall asleep for a few hours while Jack was driving. He’s supposed to be watching the road, helping Jack keep an eye on the van that picked Cage up at the meet last night, but he’s strung out from nerves and exhausted from the day. The hum of tires on the highway is lulling, and even the fact that Jack has the radio on, a low enough volume he can hear a phone call if one comes in, can’t keep his eyes open.

He wakes up with a jolt when Jack stops the car.

“I’m so sorry,” he gasps quickly, scrambling to sit up and wincing at the tension in his neck and shoulders from the uncomfortable position. 

“Kiddo, it’s fine. You looked exhausted, I’d have woken you up if I really needed you helping me.” Jack smiles, and there’s a softness to the crinkles around his eyes. “Besides, you looked awful peaceful sleeping there.”

Peaceful isn’t something Mac can say defines his life lately, and he’s grateful to Jack for letting him have at least these small moments of it. Because things are about to get much  _ less _ peaceful again. He can see the SWAT team setting up above a low brick building, it’s a water treatment plant.  _ Odd place for a meeting, but okay. _ The van Cage got into is parked down there, and Mac can see her and a couple of the mercs getting out. She’s still holding the canister of tear gas. 

Mac follows Jack out of the car and down toward where the SWAT team is gearing up. Jack shakes his head. “Mac, we got this, you can go wait in the car.” He’s going Delta mode, his face all serious hard lines. 

“I promised Cage I’d have her back. And I need to stay close enough to detonate the tear gas anyway.” He holds up the remote he created.

“Okay, fine, but you’re puttin’ on a vest.” Jack pulls him back toward the SWAT van and grabs two Kevlar vests, tugging Mac’s over his head before putting on his own. Mac feels like a child being strapped into a flotation vest to go swimming in a lake.  _ I hate Kevlar, it’s so heavy and hot. _ Granted, the air is crisp right now with a wintery bite, it’s December, but that still doesn’t mean he likes this. But if that’s what it takes to be allowed to stay, he’ll do it. 

He slips a comm in and tunes it to Phoenix frequency. 

“Riley, we’re live,” Jack says, putting on his own. 

“Okay, guys. I got ears on Cage. I opened up the mic on her cell phone. Well, Mac’s cell phone.” He had to loan her his since she smashed her own and Jack refused to let his out of his sight.  _ ‘She’s gettin as bad as you, Mac, ‘cept she has the decency to at least destroy her  _ own _ stuff.’ _ Mac actually had to stifle a laugh at that one. 

“SWAT team's in position,” the team leader, a guy named Griggs, ex-Army Ranger, alerts them.  “Nobody moves until we get confirmation from Cage that she's secured the real gas,” Jack says. 

Mac can hear Sam through the phone mic, it sounds like she’s talking to Singh now. “All right. Kept my end of the bargain. What time are we hitting Grand Central?” 

Sure enough, Singh’s voice answers. “There's been a slight change of plans. Since you guessed our target, Chandra's picked a new one.”

Jack holds up his hand. “Wait a second. VX gas is water-soluble.”  _ Right. Jack is a nerd about deadly stuff. _ And then what he means catches on. 

Mac freezes. “This place supplies all the water to New York City.” 

“So they're gonna deploy that nerve gas right here, right now. Hey, be ready, boys. We're about to jump.” 

Singh is still talking. “No offense, but we don't trust you, not yet. So, just to be safe, we're going to drop both canisters into the water. That way, no matter what, the real VX gets into New York's water supply.”

“Albatross,” Sam’s voice is just slightly shaky. 

“That's the signal. SWAT, go now, now, now.” Jack runs toward the door, and Mac triggers the tear gas. He can hear the mayhem inside through the comms, and then he’s in the middle of it, running inside toward where Cage is fighting Singh for the real VX canister. Sam kicks it out of the merc’s hand, but he takes her down with a swipe to the leg before she can grab it. Mac snatches it up and turns toward the door, but a stray ricochet pings off the canister and he hears a soft hissing. 

_ They hit it. The gas is escaping.  _ Mac has seconds to think before everyone in this room is poisoned. He rushes to a small office and slams the door behind him, hoping it’s airtight enough to stop the gas from leaking out. 

The commotion in the room behind him is muted, echoing like he’s underwater. “Drop your weapons. Hands in the air! Get down on your knees now!” The air inside the room is getting hard to breathe. Mac sets the canister down and moves as far away from it as he can, pulling his shirt over his nose to try and stop the worst of the gas, even though he knows it’s already too late. He’s coughing painfully, his lungs feel like they’re on fire. 

And then there’s a pounding on the door, and he looks up to see Jack’s horrified face in the window. “Mac! Mac! Hey. What the hell are you doing?” 

“It's leaking,” Mac gasps out, continuing to cough. 

“Then get out of there!” Jack’s voice is ratcheting up to what basically amounts to a desperate scream, and Mac feels like crying. 

“It's too late. He’s already exposed.” Sam’s voice sounds cold, clinical, but Mac can hear the emotion in it.  _ I’m going to die.  _ He just doesn’t want to die for nothing. He has to get the gas out of here and gone before it leaks into the rest of the plant and poisons everyone. 

_ I can’t breathe. _ He’s shaking, he can’t do this, not again.  _ Jack! _ He wants to scream for Jack to come help him but Jack can’t come in here or he’ll die. 

He has to be able to fix this. But first he has to be able to make his body work.  _ My throat’s closing up. Like an allergic reaction. People carry Epi-pens to fix that... _ He’s sure the chances of finding one in here are slim, but he might be able to use his body’s own adrenaline to mimic the effect. 

The problem is how to get more when he’s already sure he’s adrenaline  _ crashing _ after they breached the water plant. And then he notices the scissors in a jar on the table.  _ Injury releases adrenaline too. _ He doesn’t want to do this, but he has no choice, if he wants to make this work. 

He raises the scissors and stabs them as hard as he can into his thigh, bending over and screaming from the agonizing pain that shoots through his leg. He can hear Jack yelling again, but now it’s even more blurred, there’s a roaring in his ears that seems to be a combination of the inability to breathe properly, and the sudden onslaught of pain. 

He straightens up, coughing again, and stumbles to the old computer in a corner, rummaging through the desk. His mind is a little less foggy for the moment, the painful clarity that always hits after he’s injured. He sort of hates that he’s so familiar with it. _Well, this will be the last time._ He stops, hands freezing on the edges of the drawer. _This is it. This is the one I don’t walk away from._ Somehow, it feels anticlimactic. _Always thought it was gonna be an explosion or something like that that finally got me._ _Not nerve gas._

“What are you doin’?” Jack asks, and his voice snaps Mac out of his thoughts and back into the real world. 

“I'm gonna make a vent hood, like the ones in every laboratory ever built.” He grabs a CD from the drawer and stumbles back to the vent pipes along the wall. 

“Won't that just spread the gas to the air above the plant?” Cage asks. 

“No. Sewer gas lines are already set up to safely dispose of methane. They push the gas through an industrial flare. I'm gonna use that same system to ignite the VX gas and burn it off before it can disperse.” Mac works as fast as he can, turning the CD into a fan, grabbing someone’s lunch out of the mini fridge and tearing off the foil wrapper to make a seal around it. He turns on the contraption and almost cries in relief as the gas begins flowing into the tube, swirling upward to where he can hear the flare igniting.  _ I did it. _

And then his wounded leg gives out and he crumples to the floor, hearing Jack screaming his name.

* * *

Jack wants to go back and put a bullet in every one of those mercs himself. It’s their fault his kid is locked in a room with deadly nerve gas, coughing violently and clearly terrified. He hears Sam run up beside him but he doesn’t have time to worry about whether she’s hurt or not.

“Mac, get out of there!” He shouts, even though he knows that won’t do the kid any good at this point. 

“It’s too late, he’s already exposed.” Sam is panting, eyes glued to where Mac is standing in the room. And then Jack watches as the kid glances around and grabs a pair of scissors out of a jar on a table.  _ Good, kiddo, do your thing. Let us get you out. _ He knows they can treat nerve gas exposure, Worthy and Deacon both had to be hospitalized after that op in Lagos, but he also knows that it’s a hell of a painful experience. 

And then Mac stabs the scissors into his leg and crumples to the floor with a blood-curdling  _ scream. _ “Mac!” Jack pounds on the glass. To hell with safety, to hell with everything but stopping the kid from killing himself. 

“Jack, he’s trying to buy himself time. Adrenaline slows the effects of the gas, at least a little.” Cage catches at his arm. Mac is scrambling back to his feet, and he is coughing a little less.  _ But damn it, couldn’t there have been a less drastic way to do that than jabbing those scissors in your leg? _

Mac starts rattling off something about vent hoods, but Jack can’t really focus. All he can see is Mac starting to cough again, the fine tremors going through his normally steady hands while he works. He feels so utterly helpless, trapped on this side of the glass while Mac is in there dying. And then the kid’s little fan thing kicks in, and Jack watches the gas slowly clear out of the room. 

Mac turns, gives him a weak smile, and  _ falls. _

He grabs at the edge of the table to push himself to his feet, but he misses, and Jack sees the desperation in his eyes as he falls back to the floor. There’s no more gas left, and there’s also no force in the world that is going to stop Jack from going in there and getting his kid. He pulls his gun, shoots the lock off the door, unwilling to bother with anything more time consuming, and rushes inside, scooping Mac up in his arms despite the kid’s weak protests. Mac begins to cough again, harsh and strangled, and Jack looks down at him shuddering in his arms and finally lets the first few tears fall. 

There’s a chemical washdown area in the building, probably for the employees who work with the sanitation treatment part of the plant, and Jack carries Mac in, turning on the drench shower and scrubbing his hands through Mac’s hair and over his shoulders, undoing the bulletproof vest and tossing it aside before going to work on his shirt buttons. 

Mac fumbles with Jack’s hands, trying to stop him from taking his shirt. He’s probably already getting disoriented and confused. “Mac, we gotta get you decontaminated, okay? I’m so sorry, but we have to get the rest of it off you.” 

“No point,” Mac chokes out, before curling into himself and coughing harder. “I’m just gonna die anyway.” 

“You’re not dying yet,” Cage tries to reassure him, handing over the extra clothes she found in one of the lockers. “We’re going to get you to a hospital.” Jack notices she leaves off the eighteen hour time frame. 

“Yeah, kiddo, it’s gonna be okay.” 

Jack’s sure he’s exposed too, from picking Mac up and carrying him, but he’s already soaked and as clean as he’ll get, and he’ll wait until they get to the jet to change his clothes.  _ I’m not nearly as bad as Mac. _ He’d take all of it himself if it would spare Mac the pain he knows is coming. 

He strips Mac out of his contaminated clothes and dresses him in the clean ones as fast as he can, unable to miss the shudders and flinches that aren’t a result of the gas. He cringes at the sight of the bleeding wound in Mac’s leg, another scar to add to his collection.  _ Oh kid. _

Sam’s on the phone when he carries Mac back out of the room. “The gas is disposed of, but MacGyver and Dalton are both exposed, and to be safe I would consider myself to be as well.” 

Jack can hear Patty’s voice on the other end, and he shrugs at Sam. She understands and tucks the phone between his shoulder and ear. “Yeah, Patty, Mac locked himself in a room with that stuff leaking all over. It’s bad. We gotta get him help fast.” 

“I’d prefer that if possible you get him back to Phoenix.” Patty says. “We have medical staff trained to handle this kind of toxin, and we also won’t run the risk of inciting a panic if we bring a nerve gas patient into a public hospital.”

Jack’s grip tightens on Mac. He knows she’s right. As much as they might try to keep Mac’s actual condition a secret, chances are the story would get out. And Jack knows only too well how public overreaction to a crisis can go. At least two of the Phoenix doctors have direct experience treating this exact strain of nerve gas. 

“I’ll prep the portable exposure kit once we’re in the jet,” Cage offers. “It’ll help with controlling the symptoms until we get him there, should buy us some more time.”  

“I can’t breathe, Jack.” Mac’s eyes are wide and panicky. 

“I know, we’re gonna help you. Okay?”

Cage drives like a wild woman all the way to the airstrip where the jet landed, the closest one to the water plant. Jack is glad the pilot followed them after they got the mercs’ location. He wants to get Mac to a hospital as fast as possible. The kid’s starting to quiver and wince, the muscle spasms are kicking in. 

Jack carries him into the jet and Sam spreads a foil blanket on the couch before Jack lays him down on it. 

Mac gasps, shaking from the pain. “Oh kiddo, I’m so sorry.” Jack knows that to touch him will probably just make everything worse, but all he wants to do is hold Mac close and protect him. “Sam, will I hurt him if I hold him now?”

“No worse than it’ll hurt to have his body in contact with anything else,” She says clinically. “If he starts seizing, don’t hang onto him, though. You could break bones. Just keep him from hitting his head on anything.”

Mac twists sideways, face crinkling, and Jack has just enough time to realize what’s happening before the kid throws up, coughing and sputtering.  _ Good thing Sam covered the couch. _ They’ll have to get the carpet cleaned. Sam appears with a trash can, and Jack holds it under Mac’s head until he stops vomiting, brushing the kid’s wet hair out of his eyes and rubbing his back gently. 

Mac finally stops, coughing and spitting, and Jack helps him swish a little water around in his mouth and spit it out. He doesn’t want to try and have the kid swallow anything right now. Sam shows up with the exposure kit, and Jack holds Mac still while she works on giving him the first round of injections, keeping Mac’s face pressed into his shoulder so he doesn’t have to see, running his hands through the kid’s hair, letting him keep such a tight grip on Jack’s shirt he thinks it might tear. 

When it’s over, he doesn’t let go, doesn’t move until Mac relaxes a tiny bit, lying back onto the couch again. Mac gives him a grateful glance and then he’s gasping, panting, curled up into a tiny ball trying to make the pain stop. It feels like forever before his body relaxes even a little, and he looks up at Jack with pain-glazed eyes. 

“Tell Bozer it’s not his fault, okay?” Mac whispers. “He’ll be mad he was gone. He wasn’t there for Jerry either and that bother....” He cuts off with a soft moan, curling into himself, tears streaming down his cheeks. 

“Mac, don’t talk like that, okay?” Jack is shaking worse than his kid is. Maybe it’s the gas, the secondary contamination, but he doesn’t care.  _ If he doesn’t make it, I don’t care if I don’t either. _ “Kiddo, you’re gonna be okay. You’re not gonna die.”

“But Jack, my hands are black.” He says it so matter-of-factly that Jack freezes. 

“N-no, kiddo, no, they’re fine. Okay? You’re okay.” He knows some people know when they’re dying. Grammaw called everyone in her phone book before she went. Grandpappy told them he wouldn’t see them next Christmas. Pops gave him a hug and cried, and Pops never cried like that.  _ But oh God please don’t take my kid. _ He hopes this is the delirium from the drug, not Mac feeling that preternatural awareness. 

He doesn’t know what he’ll do if this is it. What any of them will do. “Please. Mac. Don’t you dare give up. Please. Hold on for me. Please, kiddo, please.” He knows he’s crying; he doesn’t care. “Please, don’t you dare give up on me.” 

“It  _ hurts, _ ” Mac sobs out, shaking and twisting his body like he’s trying to find some position that will make him comfortable. “I want it to stop, make it stop,  _ please. _ ” The last word is a cry of agony ground out between gritted teeth. 

“Oh, kiddo, I know. I know. Oh kiddo.” Jack holds him tight, watching the labored breathing, feeling the tremors running through his body, listening to the breathless sobs. Jack has watched so many people die. He watched relatives take their last breaths, held fellow soldiers’ hands while they slipped off in medevacs or on the battlefield. He’s watched enemies fall at the other end of his scope, and seen the light in the eyes go out when he’s been forced to kill in close combat. But nothing, nothing has shaken him like this. 

Mac starts shaking again, harder, his eyes rolling back before they close completely, and Jack feels a cold thrill of fear shoot through him.  _ No no no. _ The violent shaking and thrashing seems to last an eternity. 

“He’s not responding as well to the treatments as he should be.” Cage’s voice is tense and strained. “I’m going to call Oversight and…”

“Damn it, I fucking know he’s not responding to it!” Jack practically screams at her. “He’s dying, do whatever the hell you have to!” He knows it’s not her fault, it’s  _ so far _ from her fault, but he has to scream at someone and that someone cannot be Mac. 

“It might be because he locked himself in a room with a concentrated dose. That’s not how people are normally exposed to nerve gas.” Jack ignores that she just used ‘normal’ and ‘nerve gas’ in the same sentence, and that Sam seems to have had no response to him cursing at her.  _ She knows I didn’t mean it.  _ “We’re not going to be able to get him to Phoenix. There’s a trauma center we’re flying over in Denver that deals with covert ops cases discreetly. I’m going to call Patty and get us rerouted, have a team standing by to take him.”

Jack nods, and she walks off to do that, leaving him alone with Mac. He looks down at the kid’s face; he hasn’t opened his eyes since that last spasm, and his normally boyish face looks horribly aged, creased with deep lines of pain and tension. “I promise, kiddo, I promise, we’re gonna fix this.”

And then Mac gasps, back arching, mouth open in a strangled scream of agony. He’s seizing, body thrashing, breathing sharp and scarily shallow. It’s not the first time Jack’s seen someone seize, but it never gets less scary. 

Sam races out from the other end of the jet, grabbing the exposure kit and readying the next round of injections. Jack watches Mac shudder and tremble, feeling tears streaming down his face, until Mac suddenly goes limp in his arms. He can hear Cage shouting something, see her grabbing things from the med kit, but his brain is lost in a fog, like he’s the one who just went unconscious. He sits there numb. This can’t be happening. It can’t. They can’t lose Mac. 

* * *

It hurts. No, that’s not the right word. It’s too strong for that. The pain is everywhere and he just wants it to be over,  _ now. _ It’s worse than anything he’s felt ever.  _ Please make it stop, please, please, please.  _ His whole body hurts, his leg feels like it’s on fire, and now he’s shaking and that’s absolutely agonizing.

He thinks he understands now why when he sat with Harry in the hospital that last day the man asked them to please just let him go, why he refused any attempt to give him food or water.  _ If it hurts this much to die, I want it to be over.  _  At least then this unbearable pain will stop.

He can’t breathe. What’s wrong? He can’t breathe but it’s not water... He can hear someone talking about gas.  _ Nitrogen gas. I’m told it feels a bit like drowning.  _ He has to get away. He thrashes frantically, but someone is holding him down. 

He can’t think. Everything is confusing and thoughts are scattering everywhere and he can’t hold onto any of them. It hurts and he can’t breathe and he might be dying. But he doesn’t know and that’s terrifying. 

_ Where’s Jack? _ The only thing that still makes sense in the whole world is that Jack has to be here. He scrambles frantically, reaching for his hand, trying to find him.  _ Jack, please, where are you? _ Or did Jack leave him too?

He starts to cry, and it hurts. The tears burn, and his stomach aches every time he sobs.  _ You’re going to die alone.  _ He doesn’t want to but it doesn’t matter what he wants, it never matters what he wants. No one is here and he’s dying. 

But there are arms around him, someone is holding him. He’s not alone after all. 

* * *

Bozer can’t make himself leave the room. He’s exhausted, part of him wants nothing more than to simultaneously down three bottles of water, devour an entire Tony’s Supreme, and fall into bed and sleep the clock around. But he also feels like he doesn’t deserve to walk out of here. Leanna just reminded him of the thought he’s been trying to keep at bay for years. He’s as guilty as Mac is, and he’s never felt an ounce of punishment for it. Sure, he’s not the one who set buildings on fire, but he’s the one who got Mac into the whole mess. It was Jerry’s death that started this whole cascade. 

In the past, he’s been able to get away from those thoughts, distract himself with something. Here in this bare room, he’s alone with nothing but the enormity of his own guilt crashing in on him, and he lowers his head to the table and sobs. 

He has no right to be angry at Leanna, not when he’s done far worse. She only talked about Mac’s past. Bozer is the reason any of it happened.  _ Nothing will ever make up for what happened to him because of me. _

He knows there’s not one single thing he can do about it now.  _ So there’s no point in mourning the past.  _ But he’s not sure he ever  _ has _ properly grieved for everything. He was always trying to keep it together for Mama. For Deja. And then for Mac, when he came back. Here, alone, he can finally let himself feel the crushing weight, and maybe finally start to let it go, too. 

He doesn’t know how long he sits there before he sobs himself out. Before he’s aware of the cool, damp metal under his cheek, before he pushes himself to his feet and walks out. He feels numb, on autopilot. He walks to his locker and grabs his backpack, hearing the phone vibrating chaotically inside when he picks it up.  His phone is blowing up, he didn’t expect it to be this bad in just twenty four hours. He pulls it out, glancing at the screen. There’s a text from Leanna, almost an hour old. He ignores it, he doesn’t want to think about that right now. She’s probably just asking if he’s okay. He doesn’t need to answer that right now, not until he can say he is okay and mean it. 

Half the notifications are from Riley.  **I know you’re in training, but when you get this, call me. Bozer, something happened. Call me when you can. I left you a message. Let me know when your training is over. Bozer, call me. Please.**

This sounds terrible. It sounds worse than terrible. Bozer queues up the voicemails, three of them, with shaking fingers. Riley’s voice on the other end of the line sounds tearful.

“Bozer, I’m not supposed to call you, but I think you deserve to know. Mac was on an op, and he was exposed to nerve gas. They’re flying him back to Phoenix for treat-” He hangs up and dials Riley’s number. The call rings and rings and goes to voicemail.

He hangs up, dialing the next voicemail. “Mac’s being taken to a hospital in Denver. I think it’s because his condition is worse. I’m flying out there now.” He doesn’t want to hear any more. He can’t bring himself to listen to the third message.  _ Mac can’t be dead. He’s not dead if I don’t hear that he’s dead. _ It’s like that story about the cat in the box Mac used to be so infatuated with. 

He leans against the cold concrete wall, shaking. The memories of Jerry are all flooding back again. He wasn’t even there when his little brother bled out and died in the street. And he’s not there now, when Mac is dying in terrible pain.  _ I have to go. I don’t care if I wash out of spy school, I have to be with Mac. _ He runs to the parking lot, lungs burning. Someone yells at him for disobeying campus protocol, but he can’t stop. They can go ahead and kick him out, he’s already gone. 

He’s packing in his room, frantically shoving a few necessities into a duffel bag, when he hears the knock on the door. He turns around to see Leanna standing there, the dark shadows under her eyes even more visible in the shadowy light from the hall. 

“You’re leaving?” Bozer knows he shouldn’t reveal anything about a Phoenix op to another trainee, from another agency. But if he’s walking out anyway, screw the rules.

“Mac is dying, and I’m not there for him. I can’t stay here.” Bozer swallows thickly. “Leanna, you saw what talking about Jerry did to me. I can’t lose another little brother. And I really can’t not even be there to hold his hand.” 

“What happened to Jerry wasn’t your fault, Wilt. And what happened to Mac wasn’t either.” Leanna looks tearful again. “I’m sorry, for today. I wanted to win, and…”

“You didn’t do anything I haven’t done to myself a hundred times.” Bozer looks her in the eye, he’s not going to be the reason someone else feels guilty like he does. “You’re a good operative, and…”

“I scared myself today,” She confesses. “What I was willing to do, in that room, to make you talk…” She sounds like Mac did after that time he had to pretend to be Murdoc. 

“You know what Mac used to say? Being a hero isn’t about being fearless, it’s about being scared to death of what you’re gonna do and going out there anyway.” He grins. “Someone else said it too, but Mac’s the one I remember.” 

“Well, he  _ was _ a hero.” Leanna says quietly. “I read his file, and I’m sure there’s so much more I don’t know. He saved so many people.” Bozer nods. “And because you helped him, so did you.” She smiles. “You might be at risk of being an accessory to his crimes, but that means you also get partial credit for the lives he saved.”

“I thought partial credit didn’t exist at spy school,” Boze says, and Leanna smiles. 

“It does when everyone is a team.”

When Bozer gets on the plane to Denver, it’s with Glover’s reluctant assurance that if he does his homework and completes his assignments while he’s there, he’ll be allowed to come back for the final test. And it’s with a kiss on the cheek from Leanna that makes him feel like all the risks of being what amounted to Mac’s sidekick were totally worth it.

* * *

DENVER, COLORADO

LEVEL 1 TRAUMA CENTER

Jack can’t sit still. He’s pacing and fidgeting and twisting the paperclips he keeps in his pocket for Mac into shapeless mangled messes. His stomach is on the verge of flipping completely over, his normally steady sniper’s hands are shaking. 

And yet there’s a strange cold detachment, like he’s the one in the hospital bed hovering on the edge of death, his soul feels like the one starting to come untethered. He swallows thickly.  _ If he dies, nothing will ever be the same. _ And yet he’s still coldly contemplating the mechanics of it.  _ I have to call Bozer. And Mr. Ericson, that middle school teacher. And... _ and who else is there to call? Who else does Mac have in his life? _ I should call Carlos Rivera. And the Penas. And the Lawsons. _ Mac should have their numbers in his phone and Jack knows his password. If he didn’t, Riley would find them. 

He feels like his body has already started moving without his permission, the way it will if the doctors come tell him the worst. They’ve treated him and Cage for nerve gas exposure as well. He’s supposed to be resting. But he can’t sit still. 

The doctors made him go out into the hall while they worked. They’ve tried to convince him to stay in another room, but he won’t leave Mac. He can’t.  _ I’m not going to abandon him. _ Everyone else has walked away from that kid. Jack won’t do it when it really matters most in the world.  _ He shouldn’t have to die alone. _

“Jack!” He turns toward the end of the hall. It’s Riley, her eyes ringed with tear-smudged makeup, her hair half undone from its messy ponytail. She runs to him, throwing herself at him, and he pulls her to him, letting her bury her face in the shoulder of the scrubs he’s wearing. “Jack, is he…”

“I don’t know. They haven’t told me anything. They’re in there with him now.” Jack doesn’t bother to tell her that Mac seized twice more on the way into Denver, that when they got him out of the plane onto a stretcher, he almost looked dead already. He spares her the ugly details, just holding her and running a hand through her hair the way he did not so long ago for his other kid. “They won’t let me be in there with him. He shouldn’t be alone, Ri. Not after everything.” 

“You don’t have to be alone either,” Riley says quietly, and a fresh stream of tears runs down her cheeks. “You’re always here for us. Now let me be here for you.” Even though she’s still crying, her fists are rubbing circles on his back. He lets her lead him to a chair and they sit down, and she takes one of his hands in hers, glancing at the paperclip in it with a watery chuckle. 

“I’m gonna show him this when he wakes up, so he can tease you about it forever.” She shoves the twisted wire in her pocket. 

“And here I thought you were on my side,” Jack says. “I already told him you agreed with me about lightsabers vs. zombies.”

“I still need proof that he built one,” She says, nudging his shoulder. “Mac says it wasn’t…”

“We made it outta Finland in one piece, I think that’s proof enough.” And then Jack stops, swallowing. They made it out of there, but Mac might not make it through the night. 

And then the door opens again, and Jack looks up, even though he already knows who is coming. “Matty.” She’s the last person Jack wants to see right now.  _ If she’d listened to us and let us just take the gas when we had our hands on it, Mac wouldn’t be dying. _

She looks shattered, almost as devastated as Jack feels. “For what it’s worth, Jack, I am sorry.” 

“If he dies, I quit.” Jack leans down so Matty can see how deadly serious he is. “There is no force on this earth that is going to stop me walking away.” He doesn’t care that there are nurses and other staff hurrying past, giving them odd looks. This is the secure unit, everyone who works here has government clearances and the ability to keep their mouths shut. “You told us to put the gas back. We could have walked away a day ago, and Mac would be fine, not fighting for his life in there.” Jack knows questioning Matty’s decision is way out of line. But out of the corner of his eye, he can see Riley nodding, just a little. “What the hell were you thinking?”

Matty doesn’t answer right away. And when she does, her voice is so quiet it’s almost lost in the chaos of the hospital. “I lost a team to Chandra, one of the first ops I was in charge of. I wanted her, it was personal. And I put you and Mac and Cage in danger to try and fix my mistake. I’m sorry, Jack.”

Jack suddenly feels all the heat and rage slide out of him. This was actually easier when he thought it was Matty just doing her big-picture thinking, being the cool, rational director. Now she’s just a grieving person like him.  _ What I want to do to everyone remotely responsible for hurting Mac is what she wanted to do to Chandra. _

And then there’s nothing more to say, because a doctor opens the door to Mac’s room, and Jack is right there before he’s even opened his mouth. “How is he?”

“Stable, for the time being. We’ll continue to monitor his condition, but the antidote seems to be taking effect, and he’s stopped seizing.” Jack flinches.  _ How many times... _ He doesn’t dare ask how that affects the brain. “I can see that it’s pointless to ask you to wait in your own room, so you may go inside and sit with him now. He’s unresponsive right now.” Jack nods and walks in. Mac looks so small and defenseless in that bed, his face still lined with pain, the hospital gown loose on his skinny body.  _ Kid’s never put on enough weight for my liking. _ He pulls one of the chairs, the sort he’s all too familiar with since Mac came along, to the side of the bed.

It’s not that Riley never got hurt, never had to spend time in a room like this. But somehow Mac is the most injury-prone agent Jack has ever met, and he thinks he knows the reason.  _ Kid is always gonna see himself as expendable.  _ He throws himself headfirst into firefights and rooms full of toxic gas, because if anyone’s going to die he wants it to be him. 

Mac and Riley both reacted to their fathers’ cruelty differently. Riley learned to protect herself. Mac learned to sacrifice himself. 

Matty and Sam and Riley join him for a while, but they leave when the nurse asks them to. Jack doesn’t fault them one bit, they’re just following the rules, but he won’t budge. Mac needs him to be there. He knows the kid probably isn’t really aware, but it does seem like Jack’s soothing calms him when the muscle spasms start again, and that holding onto Jack’s hand helps him ride out the agonizing pain. 

Bozer is a surprise. Jack has no idea what strings were pulled, how Matty managed it, but when Boze shows up in the door, Jack actually gets up, for the first time, and hugs him.  _ He’s gonna be falling apart right now. _ Bozer looks terrible, clearly exhausted, and Jack guesses he got that message right after he got out of interrogation training.  _ Oh crap. Poor guy. _ He’s not surprised when Bozer crashes on the couch by the window a mere half-hour after arriving.

He dozes off a few times, waking whenever Mac starts to shake or cry out, or when his labored breathing gets even more difficult.  _ Come on, kid, fight it. You’re the strongest person I know. Don’t give up now. _

He decides to act like he’s still asleep when Patty walks in, sits down beside Mac, and just brushes the hair out of his face and sits quietly in the dark room.

Somewhere in the night, Jack isn’t sure when, things turn. In between the doctors still bustling in to continue to give treatments, Mac stops shaking so much. His breathing gets easier, he seems calmer, and some of the pain goes out of his face. By the time the doctors call them all into the hall to talk, Jack already knows what they’re going to say. But it doesn’t make being told for sure that Mac is responding to treatment and recovering any less of a relief. 

“Jack. Jack, he’s gonna be okay.” Riley is shaking, and her mascara is still smeared on her cheeks. “He’s gonna pull through.” 

Jack doesn’t bother to tell her he knows that. He knows she needs to say it, to reassure herself. He pulls her into a hug, then steps back into the room. Sun is coming through the window, lighting up Mac’s face, and he looks innocent and peaceful, like a small child. Jack swallows back tears of his own. And then Mac’s eyes flicker open, and he suddenly looks agitiated, glancing around until he catches sight of Jack. Instantly, he relaxes, a tiny soft smile beginning to form. 

“H-hey kiddo.” 

Mac reaches out, a hand weakly fumbling across the sheets until it finds the one Jack’s extending to meet it. 

* * *

Mac just wishes the pain would stop. It’s unbearable, and the way he’s being moved around and poked and prodded is making it worse. He can’t stop shaking, and he’s tired and achy and he wants to sleep but it hurts too much.

Sometimes the world goes black, but he always wakes up again, and that annoys him.  _ Just leave me alone, let me go. _ He doesn’t want to come back, because all he ever wakes up to is pain. It hurts so much, and he just wants to be gone, because even though he’s scared of dying he doesn’t want to live if it’s going to be this much pain. 

He can’t tell if after a while he starts getting used to it, or if the pain is actually fading. He wonders if he’s dying, he’s not really sure what that’s supposed to feel like. Isn’t he supposed to see a light or something? Or maybe someone like Mom coming to get him? He doesn’t know, he’s read a few accounts of people’s near death experiences and things like that, but he isn’t seeing anything like that. He’s hearing voices, but he also hears hospital sounds, and that’s definitely a very real-world sound. 

He blinks, forcing his eyes open. They feel crusted and bleary, but he can see. He glances around, he’s definitely in a hospital room, but it isn’t at Phoenix, he doesn’t know where he is... And someone is standing next to him.  _ Jack _ . As long as Jack is there, and smiling, everything is going to be okay. 

He dozes off a few more times, and each time he wakes up, his body feels less painful and just sore. His leg throbs every time he has another spasm, and he has to hold on tight to Jack’s hand to try and keep himself from screaming. 

“Hey kiddo, how are you holding up?” Jack asks after the most recent spasm. Mac knows this one made him cry, every muscle in his stomach was taut and aching. 

“Uh, tell Riley I’m never not gonna take her seriously anymore when she complains about cramps.” 

“I’m gonna hold you to that,” Riley says, stepping in with her coffee and Cage behind her. “But I think you might actually have me beat this time.” She winces in sympathy as another ripple of pain crosses his face. 

“What happened to your leg?” Bozer asks, and Mac realizes that all of his thrashing and fidgeting must have moved both the blanket and his hospital gown enough to show the bandage. He flushes self-consciously and lets go of Jack’s hand to cover himself up. 

“You wanna tell him, or should I?” Jack asks. Mac sighs, staring down at the blankets and feeling his cheeks turning red all over again.

“I stabbed myself in the leg.”

“What?”

“With a pair of scissors,” Sam adds unhelpfully. 

“Mac!” 

“Man, that is the  _ reason _ ‘never run with scissors’ is a cliche.” Jack shakes his head. “You shoulda taken lessons from one o’ my old Air Force buddies, he was always sayin’ stuff like that.” 

“I wasn’t running with them, Jack.” Mac frowns. “That was a planned injury, not an accident.”

“You know you’re not making me feel better, right?” Bozer asks. “Mac, I can’t leave you alone for  _ two weeks! _ ” Mac decides it’ll be in his best interests to mention nothing about the near drowning in Brussels. 

* * *

“You don’t have to stay,” Mac says. Jack knows he looks like crap, he can feel the three-day stubble and he hasn’t slept, really, in almost that long too. At least he’s been able to take showers here, and Riley brought him clean clothes, so he doesn’t smell.

“Ah, man, where else am I gonna go? Hotels are freakin’ expensive.”

“Write it off as work-related and piss Matty off,” Mac chuckles, then winces, face crinkling. “Ow. How long is it gonna be before this stops?”

“Well, the gas is out of your system, but your whole body’s gonna be real sore from all the muscle spasms. It’s like you did a workout that used every muscle in your entire body.”

“Does that mean I get a pass on doing ones with you for a while?” 

“Yeah.” Jack leans over, brushing Mac’s hair off his forehead. “You still feelin’ too cold there, kiddo?”

Mac nods, and Jack unfolds the heavier blanket at the foot of his bed, tucking it around the kid until he’s cocooned in it. “How’s that?” 

“Better.” 

“Want any water?”

Mac shakes his head. “You asked me that ten minutes ago. I’ll tell you if I’m thirsty.” His fingers fidget with the blanket, picking at a loose string. “You don’t have to fuss over me, Jack. Really. I’m going to be okay.” 

“I know, but I  _ want _ to be here doing this stuff.” Jack rests his hand over Mac’s. “There is nowhere else I want to be right now.” He’s not going to say he has nothing better to do, he’s afraid of how phrasing things that way might sound to Mac’s affection-starved view of the world.  _ If he thinks I’m just taking care of him because he’s the best option right now, that ain’t gonna be great for his self-esteem. _

“I’m not a baby, I don’t need someone hovering around the clock, you know.” It would sound annoyed if Jack couldn’t hear the desperate longing underneath it. If he couldn’t hear James’s voice in those words, instead of Mac’s. He wonders how many times that man watched his son sick or in pain and refused to help him because help was for the weak.  _ He’s just parroting back what that man taught him. _

“I know. But I’m a helicopter parent, and I do need to hover around the clock, so can you indulge an old man?” Jack smirks, rubbing his hand over Mac’s shoulder. 

“Thank you,” Mac whispers quietly. His voice is suddenly choked. 

“Of course, kiddo.” 

“You didn’t have to stay. You didn’t have to risk getting poisoned too,” Mac says, voice so soft Jack can’t tell if he’s meant to be hearing this. “But you never left.” 

“And I would do it all again in a heartbeat for you.” Jack twists his fingers through Mac’s. There was no way in hell Jack was leaving him alone. Ever. “What are you smiling for?”

“It takes less muscles to smile than to frown. And like you said, they’re all sore, so…” 

“Wait, is that actually true?” Jack asks. He figured that would be another thing Mac would just be quick to debunk. He was keeping that one around in his box of ‘rile Mac up and get his mind off the problem’ phrases. 

“Don’t know.” Mac shrugs. “Just sounded like...something you’d say.”

“You got that right, kiddo.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to impossiblepluto's fic Atropine+Icarus for helping me write the post-nerve gas poisoning scenes!


	10. War Room+Ship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for mentions of past self harm and thoughts of self harm in this chapter...

### 210-War Room+Ship

RILEY’S APARTMENT

SHE THINKS SHE CAN STILL SMELL BUG KILLER

It’s three a.m. and Riley’s phone is ringing. She rolls over, bleary-eyed, and grabs it up. There are only a few reasons it could be ringing at this hour, none of them good. _Phoenix, and Matty has a life and death mission. Jack, and Mac’s leg wound somehow has some life-threatening infection now._ If it’s a telemarketer she’s going to scream.

She’s been struggling to sleep lately as it is, still dealing with the memories of Lemaire and his threats, and also fretting about Mac. They brought him back from Denver two days ago, he’s on the mend and trying to get up and around on his own, but she’s still afraid he could relapse or something. She doesn’t know what kind of long term effects getting dosed with nerve gas has.

But it’s not the Phoenix, or Jack. It’s Elwood. At three in the morning. _Ah, damn it, he’s probably fallen off the wagon again._ She’s already imagining the drunken slur in his voice, the stuttered explanations, the inevitable request for money that she’s only given in to twice.

But she can’t just not answer. He might have crashed his car in a ditch or pissed off someone nasty and gotten himself hurt, or he might be so blackout drunk she’ll have to trace the call, find him, and get him somewhere he can sleep it off. _And yeah, I don’t want to do it, but I’m not gonna leave him on the streets like the piece of trash he is, I’m better than that._ “Yeah, Elwood, what is it?”

“Someone’s trying to kill me.”

It wouldn’t be the first time. Riley had a run in with Douggie, one of Elwood’s old associates from the Bronx, a while back. He’d tried to shake Elwood down for his share of a stolen baseball Elwood apparently was so drunk he lost somewhere. When he wasn’t good for the money, Douggie must have figured taking his daughter was going to be some kind of leverage. Riley left him in a neck brace, with a gunshot wound to the thigh. _That’s what he gets for trying to kidnap a trained operative._

“Where are you?” _If it’s a bar..._

“I...I don’t know, really. I just couldn’t stay in the motel room. He’s going to find me and he’s going to kill me and then he’s going to kill you too.”

Riley’s already pulling up a search function to track the call, shoving her feet into mismatched sneakers, and dragging on a sweatshirt. She fumbles along her dresser for her car keys; her backup handgun is already tucked in the waistband of her pajama pants. “Who?”

“James MacGyver.”

* * *

“Jack, for the last time, I’m not an invalid.” Mac struggles to his feet, trying not to let the pain from his healing leg wound show on his face. It’s not that bad anymore but it still stings.

“You’re gonna be if you rip that thing open again. Please, Mac, can you not stay put for an _hour?_ ” Jack shakes his head. “This is why I can’t leave you alone.”

“I was just gonna feed Mickey…”

“Why? I fed him when I got up this morning!”

“He was whining like…” Mac sighs as he realizes what’s just happened. “My own dog is trying to con me.”

“Of course he is, you and Bozer spoil him. He probably misses the guy who’d give him pancakes with tuna rolled up in them.” Jack’s not wrong. Mac can tell Mickey’s not the same since Bozer left. Not that he’s been home much to know, and he knows Penny’s doing a great job looking after the dog, but when he’s around he can tell Mickey is looking for the second housemate. “Bet Bozer fed him every time he gave him the puppy eyes, am I right?”

Mac chuckles. “Probably. Bozer’s a sucker for that.”

“You should know, you’re a master of it. But you’re usually askin’ for a phone or something to rip apart,” Jack says, grinning and shoving a plate with a bagel on it unto Mac’s hand. “I can’t really say no to that either.”

Mac’s long ago given up on trying to get Jack to stop comparing him to a puppy. He knows a lost cause when he sees one.

He sits back down on his bed, tearing off a piece of bagel and watching Mickey follow it with his eyes, drooling. “Okay, fine. One piece.” He holds it out and the dog gobbles it down, then rests his head on Mac’s good leg. _Do I really look at Jack like that when I’m asking for his phone?_ He probably does.

Jack sits down next to him, absently rubbing Mickey’s flopped-over ear. “How are you feelin’ this morning, kiddo?”

“Bored, little achy, mostly fine.” It’s hard to believe that a week ago, he was hovering on the brink of death from nerve gas poisoning. His leg still hurts from the stab wound, but it wasn’t terribly deep; he’s had worse.

Jack hasn’t left his side, practically, since the incident at the water plant. Just like every other time Mac’s been hurt, he’s hovering, and this time it’s even worse because Mac almost _died_ . Mac pretends it annoys him, at this point, just because he doesn’t really know how else he’s supposed to respond. _I’m a grown adult, I shouldn’t need to have someone taking care of me like that. I outgrew that when I was five._ But a tiny part of him, is asking if maybe he didn’t outgrow it then, if maybe James just was never willing to take care of him like Mom had, and he’s just catching up on what he missed out on. Because it feels better than he’d ever admit to have Jack fussing over him.

His phone buzzes, and he grabs it off the table beside his bed. It’s Matty.

**Blondie, have mercy on Jack’s phone. Got something at Phoenix to keep your brain occupied.**

“Looks like Matty needs us,” Mac says, showing Jack the text. “Guess we’ll have to go in.”

“Cool. She probably didn’t text me because she thought you’d already taken my phone apart.” Jack laughs, picking up his phone. “I’ll tell her we’re on our way, let her know my phone’s escaped a horrible death.”

He shoots off a text, then frowns at the almost instant reply. “Dude, she says she just wants you.” Mac tries not to feel too worried. _Probably just some geeky science thing that she knows Jack would be super bored sitting around watching._ He hopes it’s not something about James. Even though the takeout menu was a dead end, he still gave it to her, hoping she might know something more, something from her days chasing that man around the world. But she’d said nothing before.

“I’m still gonna drive you over. You shouldn’t be putting any more strain on that leg than you have to.” Mac nods.“Don’t worry, kiddo, if they give you something it takes you more than an hour to figure out, I’ll swing by the house at some point and make sure Mickey hasn’t figured out how to get into the fridge.”

“Thanks.” Mac grins, accepting Jack’s hand to help him get to his feet. “You really, really don’t have to still stay at the house all the time. Bozer’s gonna be coming home from training tomorrow, and…”

“And what else am I gonna do? Go ‘lone wolf’ it up in my apartment?” Jack shakes his head, making a passable imitation of a wolf howl. “Every lone wolf needs a pack. That goes for you too, kiddo.”

“That sounds like one dysfunctional wolf pack,” Mac chuckles. “But seriously, I feel like you’re always having to take care of me…” He doesn’t want to be too much. He knows Jack doesn’t think that, but he might subconsciously be getting worn down. _He was just here when I messed up my knee._ But Mac already knows that if he says anything about Jack not needing to come over every time he’s hurt, Jack is just going to tell him that if he really wants that, he should stop getting injured so often. _I wish._

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m gonna make you repay this someday when I’m old and decrepit and I need you to spoon-feed me,” Jack says, grinning. “Ah, I’m just kidding, Mac. I just worry about you. But if it is too much, you just say the word and I’ll back off. If I’m embarrassing you or something with bein’ too fussy.” He hands Mac his crutches. “But don’t ever worry that you’re an inconvenience. I never, ever want you to think that, okay? It’s fine if you’re just wanting a little more space, or whatever, but I don’t ever want you thinking you’re a burden.”

Mac nods. _It’s still weird to think Jack isn’t going to decide I’m too much work and just walk away._ He knows it probably looks strange and childish, to anyone else, but he really does appreciate what Jack does for him when he’s hurt or even just shaken up from a bad mission. _It’s nice to not be alone._ Part of him feels weak for craving that closeness, but that’s the part James created, and the more time he spends with Jack, the further and further he can push James out of his head. Jack is helping him heal in more ways than one.

* * *

SOMEWHERE

Bozer blinks awake. His eyes feel too heavy, too crusted with sleep. Like the times he woke up after he had surgery for the stab wound in his stomach last year. He hasn’t been in medical nearly as much as Mac, but he is at least passingly familiar with the effects of strong anaesthetics.

He blinks again, and the blur of blue and brown in front of him becomes Leanna, still dozing peacefully, or as peacefully as is possible when you aren’t voluntarily asleep. “Hey!” He says, reaching up to shake her awake, and then stopping as the jingle of handcuffs alerts him to his bound wrist. Which is currently attached to one of Leanna’s.

“Stop shakin’ me!” Leanna says drowsily. “I’m not gonna be late…” She must be dreaming. Bozer grabs her hand that’s attached to his and rubs at it, maybe a less violent method of waking her up is a better idea.

“Leanna. Leanna!” He calls softly, and finally her eyes flicker open.

“Bozer...did we…” Her eyes have gone suddenly wide.

“No, not unless you’re into handcuffs.” He grins in spite of himself, remembering his and RIley’s trick in Azerbaijan. “And somehow managed to keep our clothes on the whole time.” They’re wearing their cool-weather training clothes from the school, cargo pants and thermal tops. He doesn’t remember why. He doesn’t remember a thing since he left campus last night...and that car passed him going too slowly…

“I think someone…” He doesn’t get any further, because there’s the rattling sound of gunfire, and bullets tear through the door, shattering a picture on the wall and burying themselves in the plaster.

He and Leanna both try to roll off the bed onto their own sides, and the handcuffs yank tight, pulling them into an awkward position with both their heads exposed. Bozer rolls over the bed to Leanna’s side, which is furthest from the door, wondering why his brain is choosing to kick out trivia about Alfred Hitchcock directing the mattress scene in _Rear Window_ instead of helping him figure out what’s going on.

“What is this?” Leanna yells, she’s clearly the one with the plan, dragging them both toward the bathroom, hunched over to avoid the bullets.

“Some kinda crazy final exam?” Bozer asks. It is their last day and unless they’re unlucky enough to have gotten themselves into danger twice over during the past three weeks, this is part of training. Besides, he wasn’t even with Leanna last night.

“With real bullets? Okay, Bozer, I think you were right, this is the _Hunger Games_.” She shoves open the bathroom window. Fortunately whatever building they’re in, they’re on the first floor, and they both tumble out.

“Let’s hope we’re Katniss and Peeta, then,” Bozer says, and they both start running toward the shadowy woods ahead, with no clear plan but getting away from the men with guns who want them dead.

“Bozer, you’ve been shot!” He glances at his shoulder and sure enough, there’s a burgundy stain seeping into his shirt. _Wow._ He suddenly feels bad for all the times he’s given Mac grief about not telling him he’s hurt. _I guess it actually is possible to get shot and not know it._ “Stop, let me tie it up.”

“We can’t stop now, Leanna,” Bozer says. “If they catch up to us, we have a lot more to worry about than a gunshot graze.” He already knows it’s not going to kill him, Jack runs around with stuff like this all the time, and so does Mac. But he has no idea what those people behind them will do to them if they’re caught. _So we can’t afford to let them find us._

* * *

THE WAR ROOM

IF MAC IS HERE, JACK NEEDS TO BE TOO

Matty shakes her head when Jack walks in with Mac. But Jack knows she won’t question it. She knows that separating the two of them isn’t going to happen, at least not easily. She simply ignores Jack’s presence and starts talking to Mac.

“Mac, I called you in because we have a rather unusual situation and we’d like your expertise on it.” She’s tapping away at something on her tablet, and Sam takes over from her spot in the corner of the room, where she’s leaning against the wall, next to Jill, who’s on her computer.

“Two hours ago, there was an accident on board a college research ship, the R. V. Bancroft, which stranded it in the Arctic Ocean 50 miles offshore.”

“What happened?” Mac asks. Jack can tell the kid’s going into problem solving mode. He’s alert and focused and Jack can already see possibilities running through his head.

“Explosion in the engine room. Blast killed the captain, four crew members and severely damaged the ship.”

“And temperatures are dropping fast,” Jill says. “With the damage they’ve sustained, there’s a very real danger of hypothermia.” Jack sees Mac shiver, and he tries not to think about how often Mac’s been at risk of the same exact thing. He also tries not to think about the reason Mac hates being cold so much. _You can worry about James and our inability to track him down later._ Although he knows that not being able to figure out his father’s clue is eating at Mac. _Good thing Matty got him something else to keep him thinking about._

Matty stops typing. “Okay, Zoe, I've tasked a satellite to keep us connected. We shouldn't lose your signal.” She tosses an image from her tablet to the main screen, and despite the dim light, Jack can see the young woman on the other end of the video call, her breaths making white fog in front of her face every few seconds. “Zoe Kimura, meet Angus MacGyver. MacGyver is an engineer here at the think tank, and our best chance at keeping you alive until help can get to you.”

“Hi,” Zoe says shakily. “You’re an engineer?” Jack freezes. _Please, please don’t ask about his credentials._ It always, always hurts to be reminded that Mac spent the years of his life when he should have been in college risking his life on the LA streets and then behind bars. He deserved so much better.

“Well, technically it’s more like a...troubleshooter.” Mac says, and Jack grins. He’s responsible for that description of Mac’s job, and he’s glad the kid adopted it. One, it sounds good to civilians, two, it’s pretty damn accurate. “And it sounds like you’ve got a problem to solve.”

Zoe nods. “I have thirty-one students on board with me, and I have to keep them alive until someone comes for us.”

“How far away is help?” Mac asks.

“A Coast Guard icebreaker is steaming toward them, but it's 12 hours out,” Jill says.

“What about aircraft?” Jack asks.

“It's negative 54 degrees.”

“Negative 56 now, actually,” Zoe says, her voice shuddering. _Damn. That kinda weather is no picnic._ Jack hasn’t been a fan since that botched op in Siberia with Sarah. He tries not to think about the other time in Siberia. With Mac.

“So too cold for planes and helicopters.” Jack shakes his head. This isn’t gonna be easy. But it is possible to survive. And if anyone can figure out a way to keep these people alive, it’s Mac.

“Okay. First step is gonna be keeping everyone on board warm.” Mac shakes his head,

Jill looks up from her computer. “The propulsion room housed the two main generators. Both were taken out during the explosion. But there is a backup, it can’t run the engines but it can power the heating system.”

“I know, we found it, but for some reason I can't get the backup genny to start.” Zoe says. “I’m actually in the room with it now.”

Mac nods. “Okay, Zoe, first thing I'm gonna need you to do is to use the camera on your laptop to show me the backup generator.”

“Okay.” She picks up her computer and walks toward the machine.

“We're gonna be doing this a lot, so we’ve got to make sure you don't run out of battery. But you should be able to charge it after we diagnose the genny's problem.” Jack grins. Mac was a mechanic for years, this one’s probably going to be a piece of cake. “Try starting it again.”

Zoe does, but the engine just makes a whining, sputtering sound and stops.

“It started for a few seconds the first time, but then it went out. Now it just does that.” She shrugs. “We have a full fuel tank, but…”

“Well, you’ve got yourself a fuel pump problem,” Mac says. “The engine’s turning over, but it’s not getting any diesel, and I can’t hear that pump engaging, so that means it’s probably got something wrong with it.” Jack could have told them that, after he clogged the fuel line in his GTO with some bad gas one time. “But we can fix that. Now, Zoe, what I need you to do is make me a list of everything on board that you can get your hands on.” She frowns. “So that's gonna be supplies, equipment, provisions, toiletries, everything. And be precise. Six packets of ketchup is not seven. Does that make sense?”

Jack loves watching people wonder what Mac’s doing. Clearly Zoe is just as confused as most of the people Mac’s worked with, and Jack can’t wait to see her realize what Mac’s capable of doing with all the random stuff on that ship. It feels like it’s been forever since he didn’t have faith in Mac to do the impossible with a shoelace, some duct tape, and a paperclip. “Yeah. Sure, I can do that. But why?”

“Because this is the stuff we're gonna use to save your life.” Mac turns to Jack. “This _is_ gonna take a while…”

“Okay, I’ll go get some coffee.” Jack doesn’t actually drink coffee, but Mac does. He’s planning on raiding the break room vending machine for a coke, himself. _And I better make sure to put a lid on that coffee._ He doesn’t want the kid to be wearing it again. _It would be just his luck, like the time we were trying to convince the Russian nuclear scientist that we could disarm his bomb and Mac was covered in coffee and grass stains._

He’s headed for the break room when he hears the door open and someone yell, “Jack!”

Jack blinks. Riley, in her cactus-print pajama pants, one blue and one orange sneaker, and the hood of her (formerly Jack’s) Army sweatshirt pulled over tangled hair, is escorting a blindfolded Elwood into the building.

“Riley?”

* * *

SOMEWHERE IN LOS ANGELES

“You’re sure he’s not going to find us?” Elwood asks, his voice muffled by the blanket he’s covered with on the floor of the back seat. It’s from the second of the three cars Riley boosted this morning, the one that belonged to some dog owners out running a trail. _Hey, I did leave them_ a _car with the keys in the ignition and a note saying they should probably call the cops and report finding a stolen vehicle._ The irony of stealing cars to help Elwood is not lost on her.

“Yes. This is my job. Trust me, I know how not to be found.” She shut off her phone and Elwood’s to keep anyone from tracking them, and she knows she doesn’t have a tail. _We might be overreacting but I don’t know if you can when it comes to James._ She won’t admit to anyone but herself that she’s afraid someone who’s basically the evil version of Mac could definitely figure out a way to track her that she’d never see coming.

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere safe.” There are many reasons Riley’s not going to take Elwood to her apartment, but the most pertinent one is that she’s not going to give James the chance to find them there. So she’s headed for the Phoenix instead. “Take off your socks and tie them together.”

“What for?” Elwood asks. She doesn’t tell him she needs a makeshift blindfold until he’s done it. “Tie them around your eyes. Tight.”

“Are you kidding?” Elwood glares at her in the rearview.

“Listen. The people I work for are serious. If they think you might know how to find their location, James MacGyver will be the least of your problems.” Jack would just love an excuse to shoot Elwood point blank.

She parks the car about three blocks from the Phoenix, in an area she already knows doesn’t have direct camera visual. No one needs to connect the random rash of LA car thefts to the Phoenix Foundation.

She pulls Elwood out of the back seat, points him in the right direction, and then punches him in the face. He staggers backward, nearly falling until he catches himself against the side of the car.

“What did you do that for?” Elwood gasps, rubbing his cheek.

“Had to make sure you really couldn’t see anything.” Riley grins, he can’t see it anyway. _That felt good._ Elwood might actually be turning his life around this time, but he’s still got a lot to pay for.

She marches him the back way to the Phoenix, avoiding most of the main streets, because they’d draw plenty of attention. She’s still partially in the clothes she slept in, and Elwood is blindfolded with a pair of socks. _Mac would be proud of that one._

She opens the door and leads Elwood in, and catches sight of Jack walking down the hall from the War Room. She thought he was home with Mac, but maybe something came up. She’s very rarely been so glad to see him. “Jack!”

“Riley?” She knows how weird this looks. Jack shakes his head. “What’s _he_ doing with you?”

“Someone’s trying to kill him, and I think it’s because he was asking around about James,” Riley says. “I wanted to tell you and Mac…”

“Mac’s in the War Room, Matty had something he could do sitting down, and it kept him from rippin’ the toaster apart for the fourth time.” He nods to Elwood. “Wanna put him somewhere so we can talk? Doubt Matty would be too happy if we start discussing classified information in front of him.”

“Hey, I’m right here,” Elwood says. “Are you just going to talk about me like I’m not?”

“Yes. Because technically, you’re not here at all.” Riley starts pushing him toward the elevators. “I’m gonna take him to secure holding, and then we can talk.”

“Secure holding? I’m the one who’s got a death threat on my head, I’m the victim,” Elwood snaps. “You can’t just lock me up…”

“I can if I’m saving your life.” Riley punches the button for the secured level a little too hard. “I’m taking you into protective custody, until we can make sure you’re not a target the second you show your face on the streets. In case you forgot, you asked for my help.”

He goes silent, clearly he can tell he’s outmaneuvered. And for once he doesn’t keep beating a dead horse. She wonders if she’s being a little too hard on him. Probably not, but one of them has to be the better person and start making some attempts at fixing whatever this is they are now.

“Listen, I don’t know what you thought I was going to do about all this…”

“I thought you were going to run and hide, not put me in a cell.”

“That’s not how we do things here. It’s not who I am anymore. You ran from your problems your whole life, and it never did you any good. We’re going to deal with this the way we have to, so we can fix it.”

“Why are you doing all this?”  
“Because it’s who I am.” _She_ isn’t even sure why she’s doing it. Part of it is that for all Elwood’s done to her, he doesn’t deserve to die. But an even bigger part of her knows that this is the closest they’ve gotten to James yet. Elwood is their new biggest lead, and they can’t afford to let that go.

She puts him in one of the rooms, closing the door behind her, then heads back upstairs. Jack meets her in the lobby and hands her a black coffee. She wraps her sleeve covered hands around the mug.

“So what’s this about James?” He asks in a low voice.

“Elwood thinks someone is trying to kill him because he was asking around. Because of what I asked him.” She shrugs. “He says his informant called him and asked what the hell he was doing getting mixed up with James and said some guy came to his house and was threatening him, trying to find Elwood.”

“But it isn’t James who came looking?”

“Could be someone working for him.” She takes a sip of her coffee, it’s bitter but hot, and that’s what she needs right now. The whole situation makes about as much sense to her as it does to Jack right now. “Elwood seems pretty sure it is.”

“Last time I saw him, Elwood had a laundry list of guys who wanted him dead.”

“I know. But he _was_ nosing around James’s information lately. I’m not willing to bank on coincidence.” _Nothing in this job is a coincidence._

“Me either. But if James wanted him dead, don’t you think he’d already have been blown to bits? Sending a merc with a gun isn’t really that man’s normal response.” Riley nods, according to Matty’s files, James tended to make his own problems disappear. Mostly because he didn’t trust anyone else, and no one trusted him.

“It’s been years since he operated openly. Maybe he’s changed tactics.” Riley wonders, now that the initial scare is over, whether she has overreacted. Maybe it is just an accident of timing. Maybe Elwood’s past is just catching up to him again. _Maybe I just really wanted it to be James, because I’m so desperate for us to have some kind of lead. To get something._ “I just think it’s worth looking into. And whether it’s about James or not, someone wants to kill him.”

“He’s lucky he called you and not me,” Jack says.

Riley nods. “Maybe we shouldn’t take this to Mac just yet.” She’s starting to feel slightly stupid. Just because Elwood is convinced this is about James doesn’t make it true. She doesn’t want to get Mac’s hopes up only to run them into another dead end.

Jack nods. “He’s in there tryin’ to keep a bunch of students alive on a research ship in the arctic with cardboard boxes and ketchup packets. I think we should let him focus. He gets kinda weird when James stuff comes up, and he can’t afford to be distracted right now.”

“Maybe I should get Cage…”

“She’s in there too. Don’t know why, but I’m not gonna argue. Listen, I’ll come down there and talk to him with you, see if what he says is actionable.” Riley nods. Elwood respects Jack enough to talk to him, and he knows what happens if he lies.

She grabs a change of clothes from her go bag before they go back; she’d rather not run an interrogation, or an approximation of one, in cartoon cactus print pants. Once she’s changed into jeans and a burgundy t-shirt, she joins Jack in the secure level and swipes open the door.

Elwood looks up when they walk in, he’s got the beginnings of a bruise on his cheekbone. “Hello, Jack. It’s been a long time.”

“Not long enough.” Jack says, pulling out a chair and sitting down. “Listen, I woulda left you out on the street for that gun-waving psycho who’s supposedly chasing you to find, but Riley’s a better person than I am. So here we are. But if you can’t give us something concrete about this guy, I’m gonna have to assume you lied to my girl again. And we both know where that leaves us.”

Elwood doesn’t look away from Jack, Riley’s stunned at the intensity in his face. “You have to believe me. I’m telling the truth. I know Morty wouldn’t lie to me. He sounded like he was gonna have a damn heart attack. Said the guy had just left. Shoved a gun down his throat and said he needed to find Elwood Davis cause I was sticking my nose in things I should have stayed out of.”

“Riley said you think this is about James MacGyver.” She bites her lip. The more they’re talking, the more she wonders if it was all just jumping at shadows. _Even Elwood doesn’t sound as convinced as he did on the phone._

“I asked Morty about him a couple weeks ago. Wanted him to do some digging; Riley had asked me and I was scared of what she was getting herself into. And now some guy comes to Morty and wants me in the ground? It has to be connected.”

“So this guy Morty told you about him?”

Elwood nods. “Yes.”

“Then let’s go pay ‘Morty’ a visit.”

* * *

Mac watches as Jill reads off the list and Cage carries in random objects she’s appropriated from around the Phoenix. They all agreed sending Sam was the best idea, she’s the most likely to be able to convince people to give up random objects.

“Life jacket.”

“Check.” Sam tosses one into the corner. “If we need all forty, the equipment supply office said we could have them, but they’re a little leery of handing over a bunch of stuff when they heard Mac was involved.” He tries hard not to be offended, he does have a tendency to return gear in various states of dismantling or just never bring it back.

“Plastic beaker.”

“Check.”

“Coffee mug, check,” Jill says, holding up her own. Mac shakes his head.

“Zoe said she had a tin coffee mug on the ship, and this one is ceramic.”

“And everything we have here needs to be identical to what she's got on board. Got it.”

“I'll keep looking.” Sam walks out, glancing at her phone for the list.

Mac looks back up at the video screen. “Well, we don’t need the mug for this part anyway, so let’s get started.” He can tell it’s getting colder on the ship, Zoe’s breaths are shuddery. “Zoe, what we're gonna do is make you a peristaltic pump to manually feed fuel to the generator. First thing you're gonna want to do is to detach the two wheels from the carry-on you have there, and then…” He looks up at the screen again and sees that Zoe is freezing up in a totally different way. Her eyes are blank in the way he sees his own team get sometimes when he gets too technical or talks too fast. “Zoe, I'm so sorry. I'm going way too fast, aren't I?”

“No. It's okay. I can keep up. I just, I know we're running out of time.” Watching her try to get it together hurts. He remembers the first time Pena let him disarm a real bomb. How terrified he was that he was going to do something wrong, that he was going to kill them both. But Pena had been so understanding and calm. He’d talked quietly, made Mac stop and think about something other than how scared he was. And Jack does the same thing every time Mac’s brain starts spinning its wheels in the field. It looks like Zoe is more like him than he thought.

“Guys, can I have a second?” He asks. Matty and Jill nod, and step out, and Matty frosts the glass over as she leaves. “Thank you,” Mac says as the door closes. “How we doing, Zoe?”

At least, unlike him, she’s actually honest about how she’s feeling. “Uh, not great. I mean, I'm having trouble focusing. And, my hands are so cold.”

“Plus, you're probably overwhelmed, exhausted and terrified. And I only say so because I’ve been there, and I know I was.” She looks at him in confusion, and he realizes too late that think tank engineers probably don’t get stranded in Siberia and need to build radios out of busted snowmobiles.

“Yeah, that about sums it up.”

He remembers how cold he was, how afraid he was that if he failed, he and Jack were going to die out there. _I was more afraid of letting Jack down than of what would happen to me._ He can tell Zoe feels the same way, about her students. But the more worried he got, the less he’d been able to focus on what he needed to do. And Jack’s solution had worked then… “All right, then. Let's take a break.”

Zoe gives him the exact same look he’s sure he gave Jack when he suggested that in the cave. “What? Do we have the time?”

“I know it sounds silly. But Zoe, if you're gonna be my hands on that ship, we both need your hands to be steady. So, how about we just talk for a second?” She nods, stepping back a little and sitting down cross-legged.

“What do you want to talk about, MacGyver?”

“Well, first off, you can just call me Mac for short,” He grins. “Save some of that valuable time of yours.” She smiles, just a little. “So, what do you teach?”

“I’m a glaciologist.” Zoe laughs nervously. “Not very interesting, I know…”  
“That’s pretty cool, actually.” Mac waits for her to get the terrible pun, and when she laughs, he grins. _Jack’s not here to do them, so I guess it’s my job to fill in._ He wonders if this is how Jack feels on a regular basis, when he’s trying to distract Mac from worrying about whatever problem they’re in the middle of. _It works for him, so I guess it was worth a shot._ And apparently it works on Zoe too.

“And you’re a...uh...troubleshooter.” She grins. “That seems way more interesting.”

“Uh, some days it’s a little too interesting.” Mac has been trying to ignore the way his leg is aching, and he attempts to subtly shift position on the chair. Unfortunately, his leg is cramped, and when he moves, there’s a sudden sharper pain. He leans over, trying to stop it, and the chair unceremoniously dumps him onto the floor.

He scrambles up, face flushed with embarrassment. _Did I really just make a complete fool of myself in front of her?_

“Are you okay?” Zoe asks, but Mac can hear her trying not to laugh.

“Yeah. Nothing wounded but my pride.” He shrugs. He can’t exactly tell her he stabbed himself in the leg with scissors last week to stop nerve gas from choking him. He glares at the offending chair and then begins to laugh himself. _I bet that looked pretty hilarious from her end._ “That...um...kinda happens to me a lot.” He counts it a win that he didn’t start panicking the second he was on the ground.

“Um, can I tell you something stupid?” Zoe asks.

“You’re talking to the guy who just fell off a swivel chair, so…” She laughs again.

“I'm seriously craving ice cream right now.”

“Ice cream is good. Why is that weird?” Mac asks.

Zoe chuckles, then rubs her hands together. “You know what? All right. I am ready to build this pump.”

“Yeah?” Mac doesn’t want to push her if she still needs time, but it sounds like she’s got things together now.

“What is step one again?”

“Removing the two wheels from your carry-on luggage you have there. And I see on the manifest that you do have a tool kit, so you'll need a Phillips head screwdriver.”

Zoe whips out a black SAK from a pocket, and opens up the screwdriver. “Got one of those right here.”

“Nice.” Mac grins.

“These things come in handy, don't they?” Zoe asks, starting to unscrew the wheels.

Mac chuckles. “Zoe, you have _no_ idea.” He watches her work, telling her things as she needs, and he’s impressed at how fast she catches on to what his plan is. _It’s like working with Frankie was._ He knows he made the right decision, staying with the Phoenix, but it _is_ nice to work with people who get what he’s talking about even when he goes on science rambles. “Save your screws. You never really know when you're gonna need them.”

Zoe nods, tucking them into her pocket, and then holds up the disassembled wheels. “What next?”

* * *

SOMEWHERE IN THE WOODS

THIS IS DEFINITELY THE HUNGER GAMES

“You really should let me dress that wound,” Leanna says. “Who knows what kind of training exercise this is. We could be out here for days.”

“Ok.” Bozer nods, leaning shakily against a tree. Now that the adrenaline’s worn off, he can feel the pain. “If this is a training exercise, how are we supposed to pass? Because I’m pretty sure this is the crazy final exam everyone was warning me about. My friend Jack said it’s supposed to feel like a real field operation, down to live ammo.”

“And some kind of narcotic,” Leanna says. She must be feeling it too. “They definitely drugged us. But if this is supposed to feel like a real field mission, what’s the objective?”

Bozer frowns. There wasn’t anything in the room that he remembers looking like a clue. No dossier, no flashdrive. He rifles through his pockets, and there’s nothing. Not so much as a scrap of paper.

“They didn’t leave us any clues to that.” He leans back against the tree.

“You don’t think we have to go back and find something in that house, do you?” Leanna asks. “Although maybe we’d be safest going back, they probably wouldn’t expect us to return to a place we were almost killed.”

Bozer takes a deep breath, trying to think. He’s under a lot of pressure right now, and the wrong decision means he fails and washes out, and takes Leanna down with him. “First rule of spy school, look past the obvious. This is supposed to be a mission, and from the looks of it, a mission gone wrong. What's the first thing that Glover taught us about being behind enemy lines?”

“Find our way home.” Leanna looks at him. “Second rule of spy school. You can’t save the world if you’re dead.”

“We need to get back to the school.” Leanna glances around. “It’s probably about six am right now judging by the sunlight. We were grabbed at maybe ten last night?” Bozer nods. They were on their way back from the last seminar of training. “So that’s an eight-hour window for them to have done all of this, which means we can’t be too far away from the school.”

There’s a distant barking behind them. “Far enough. They're using dogs to track us. Are we gonna be able to outrun them?” Leanna asks.

“I know I can. I hope you can, too.” They just have to find some way to throw the dogs off their scent, and in every book Bozer’s ever read, the heroes get away from the dogs by losing the scent in water. If they can find a creek or a river or something…

His shoulder is aching and burning in earnest now, and he feels like he’s not getting enough air with each panting breath. And most of all, he’s afraid he’s made the wrong choice. _What if going back was the winning move, and we just failed?_

* * *

A NICE SUBURBAN HOUSE

NOT THE PLACE YOU’D EXPECT TO FIND A CRIMINAL INFORMANT

“You’re sure Elwood gave you the right address?” Jack asks, looking up at the grey stucco house with a postage-stamp lawn and a couple scrubby flowering trees alongside the front steps.

“Yes. He wasn’t lying about that.” Riley’s no Cage, but she does know Elwood. She knows when he’s selling her a con. And this was the truth. “You really didn’t have to come with me, I know you were keeping an eye on Mac.”

“He’s safely sequestered in the War Room being a geek. I am not letting you go to any of your old man’s friends’ houses alone.” Jack emphasizes the point by checking his mag and chambering a bullet.

“Trust me, Elwood dragged me around to them all the time. He wanted me to take over the family business,” She says wryly. “I’ve been dealing with informants way longer than I’ve been with the Agency.” She remembers Morty, a short stocky guy who, when she was a kid, seemed like a dead ringer for Vizzini from _The Princess Bride_. “Morty’ll talk to me.”

She takes a deep breath and settles herself into the role she’s about to play. _To swim with the sharks, you have to make them believe you have teeth too._ She walks up the path and knocks on the door.

It’s answered by someone with even less hair than she remembers, and more lines in his face, but unmistakably the man she remembers from her childhood. But it’s clear he doesn’t recognize her. _Because the last time Elwood took me to see him I was a baby-faced ten year old._ It’s always odd thinking about how messed up her childhood was.

“What do you want?” Morty snaps, his voice muffled around the stub of one of his ever-present cigarettes. Riley can hear the rattle in his chest, the hoarse sound in his voice. _Not surprising if he’s still smoking like I remember._

“Remember me, Morty? Riley Davis?” She raises an eyebrow.

“I don’t want nothing to do with none of Woody’s family.” Morty tries to slam the door, his face suddenly white. Jack stops it with one tac boot.

“I hear you told someone where to find my old man. That’s not what I want to hear, Morty.” She knows he doesn’t know anything about her since Elwood dropped out of the family and stopped bringing her with him. _For all he knows, I could be working with a mob, a cartel, anything in the underground._ With Morty, that holds a lot more weight than a legitimate government agency. “The only reason you’re not six feet under right now is that I got to Woody before whoever else you sent his way.”

“I swear, I didn’t tell nobody nothing.” Morty’s shaking, the stub of cigarette champing between his teeth like it’s a stick of gum. “I just told him Woody was in town. He already knew that. I didn’t know any more anyway!” _I already know he didn’t tell that man anything concrete. But I just want to put a healthy fear into him._

“Let’s say I believe you. I’d like to have a little chat with whoever wants my old man. You know where I can find this guy?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care. And if I told you anything he’d come back and then he would kill me.” But Riley can tell he’s hiding something. And she’s going to do whatever it takes to get it.

“Listen. You think the guy who came after you is bad news? This is my bodyguard, and he’s ex-Delta.” Riley tries to push the threat as far as it will go. She’s not as naturally intimidating as Patty or Matty, but a confident attitude and a leather jacket go a long way. “He’ll kill you however I ask him to, if you don’t tell me what you know.”

Morty flinches. “Okay. But not out here.” He pulls her and Jack into the smoke-filled house, and Riley coughs on the overwhelming smell. “He had a mask on, and all he did was whisper. But there was a scar on his left wrist. And not like a knife scar. Like some kinda chemical burn.” He glances nervously at Riley. “That’s all I know.”

“You’re sure?” Jack asks.

“It was inches from my face when he was pushing his Ruger down my throat, I think I oughta be sure.” Jack stiffens, and Riley glances at him. _He knows who that was._

“Thanks, Morty. I’ll be seeing you.” Riley steps outside, taking a deep breath of the cleaner air. Even LA smog feels fresh after that smoky room. She waits until they’re both in the car to ask Jack what he knows.

“Who was that?” she says. “You looked like you’d seen a ghost when he told us about that scar.”

“Wasn’t the scar so much as the gun,” Jack says. “That’s Roman Mareks. He’s a Ukrainian arms dealer, mostly handles chemical weapons. That's how he got that scar. Ruger’s his gun of choice, he won’t use anything else.”

“What’s a Ukrainian arms dealer doing protecting James?”

“Maybe he’s not protecting him.” Jack says. “James was known for double-crossing the people he dealt with. Maybe a deal with Mareks went south and he’s looking for him too. But Mareks is vicious. There’s a reason people talk about not messing with the Ukrainians. He wants James to himself, and if he thinks Elwood is competition…”

“He’s going to kill him to get to James first.” Riley sighs. “Well, let’s go stop a bad guy from killing another bad guy and my sort of bad guy dad.”

Jack puts the GTO in gear and peels out. “You know, you were really scary back there,” he says, glancing at her. “I’ve seen you do a lot of undercovers, but that was...impressive.”

“I don’t really like to go that far down,” Riley says. She’s staring at her hands, the chipping burgundy nail polish. Her fingers are starting to shake.

“Can I just say, I’m really glad you didn’t go dark.” Riley is too. Sometimes she wonders who she’d be if the CIA hadn’t recruited ‘Artemis’. _I’d have done time for what I did. Become hardened, angrier than I already was._ Being the person she had to be today scares her a little, because somewhere in her, that dangerous one exists.

“I’ll have Friar start a search for Mareks,” Riley says, pulling the man’s file from the Phoenix database and putting it into her program. She needs to distract herself from what she just did. _Mac is scared of how far he’s willing to go to find his father. I’m afraid of how far I’m willing to go to protect mine._ She’s done far worse to save Jack. She’s killed for him. But in her mind, that makes sense. She knows why she does what she does for him. But doing this for Elwood, when he has never once risked anything for her...it doesn’t make sense.

“Jack, do you think I’m crazy?” She asks, and then realizes that’s coming out of the blue for him.

“What? Because you went a little Rambo on an informant?” Jack shakes his head. “Mac pretended to be _Murdoc,_ doesn’t mean he’s a psycho killer.”

She nods. “Yeah, but...I did that to find out who was trying to kill Elwood. I’m doing all this to try and protect him. I mean, this guy has not made one sacrifice for me. Not one. Then he shows back up in my life swearing he's changed, and the next thing you know, I'm stealing cars and shaking down informants.” She sighs. “It's like I'm ten years old all over again.”

“You helped him steal cars at ten years old?” Jack groans. “Just...Don't answer that.”

“It just scares me, the places I’ll go inside myself.” She knows Jack gets it. She remembers the broken soldier she first met, angry and reeling from his partner’s near death experience. She knows that if she really starts heading for the deep end, Jack will always drag her back. Because he’s been there, he knows, and he won’t let it happen to her.”

“You’re a real badass, Riley, but more than that, you’ve got a good heart, and I know that’s what you always make your decisions with. Honestly. Even if the biological doesn't see it, the Wookiee does.” Jack smiles, imitating a Wookie growl. “For the record, I really hope if Morty hadn’t cooperated you were gonna ask me to rip his arms out of their sockets.”

“I think that would have scared him into talking for sure.” Riley grins. _Yeah, Jack’s always gonna keep me from going under._

* * *

“Now, bend the generator's fuel line into a U-shape around the wheel and axle assembly.” Mac demonstrates, glancing up at the screen to see how it’s going on Zoe’s end.

“Okay. Done.” Zoe holds up the bucket with the fuel line inside. “How's this look?”

“Yeah, that's perfect. You just built yourself a peristaltic pump.” Mac smiles; Mr. Ericson would be proud he still remembered this. He really ought to call him sometime, and tell Valerie about this one. “Now, running the drill should push diesel along the fuel line and into the generator just like the fuel pump should have.” He inserts it into his homemade pump and starts it. “Just like that.”

“Wow. Here's to hoping mine does that, too.” Zoe inserts the drill into her pump, and then presses the button. The liquid clearly begins to move along the line, and a few seconds later, when one of the students starts the generator, the engine kicks in and Mac watches the screen get brighter when the emergency lighting kicks on.

“Oh, my God. It worked. It worked!” Zoe sounds ecstatic.  We did it. Oh, my gosh. I can already feel the heat coming on.” He can hear some of the other students cheering in the background.

“And now that you got the power on I can see you a little better. Just remember to keep swapping out the drill batteries and keep charging them, okay?” He’s trying to think of all the things they’ll need to be doing to make sure that the generator continues to run long enough for the Coast Guard to arrive. “And don’t forget to make sure everyone is drinking enough water. You too.” Zoe nods.

“Thank you so much.” And then there’s a blaring, wailing sound that makes both Mac and Zoe flinch. “Is that the fire alarm?” Zoe asks, her face suddenly strained again. She glances at someone Mac can’t see. “Go check on the other students. Can someone go in the control room and see where the fire is?”

Mac hears a faint voice coming through “I'm in the control room. The computer's showing fires in the bow thruster room, the galley and the science lab.”

“Maybe it's just an error. I'll go check the thruster room.” Zoe vanishes from the screen, and Mac turns to see Cage and Jill. He didn’t want to say anything with Zoe still there, but he doubts that’s a false alarm.

“Jill, where are those fires?” She wordlessly turns her computer around to show him the rooms highlighted in red.

“These rooms are right above the propulsion room where the explosion happened. Heat from the blast could've melted the insulation on the wiring behind the walls. Turning the power back on shorted them out and lit the fires.” Mac takes a deep breath and turns back to the front screen just in time to see Zoe reappear, eyes wide, coughing.

“Okay, not a false alarm. Real fires. Very real and, um, our fire suppression system didn't come on.” He can tell she’s trying not to panic, but this is bad. Really bad.

“Okay, so the ship must've sustained more damage than we thought. But trust me, Zoe, we can fix this.” He looks her directly in the eyes. “This won’t even be close to the first fire I’ve talked someone through putting out.” _At least it’ll be a whole lot easier than getting a jet engine yards from a blazing wellhead._

Zoe coughs again. “I already have some of the students trying to contain them. We have enough extinguishers for the smaller fires, but the one in the bow thruster room, it's getting out of control.”

“Let me see it.” Zoe picks up the computer, and Mac fights a wave of vertigo as she walks down the hall with it. Sure enough, there’s a plume of fire coming from the door in front of her. “Okay, that door right there. It's watertight, which means it's also airtight. If you can close it, then the fire should eat up all the oxygen and burn itself out.” Zoe nods. _So, not so different from blowing out a wellhead after all._ “Be careful, though. It's gonna be very hot.”

Zoe nods, setting down her computer, yanking off her sweater, and using it to close the door handle. He flinches as a curl of fire leaps out, and Zoe jumps back, beating at her hair. But she doesn’t give up, and a few seconds later, the door is tightly shut and she’s leaning against the wall, coughing.

“Okay. That seemed to have worked. And the other fires are going out, too, so,” She cuts off, coughing again. “I think we're gonna be okay.”

Mac shakes his head, they can’t afford to relax yet. Fire is something he’s all too familiar with, and he knows the danger isn’t over. “Most fire deaths aren't from burns, they're from smoke inhalation. So, without fresh air, everyone on board is still in danger. You need fresh air, soon.”

“If we open the hatches I don’t know if the heating system can keep up,” Zoe says. “The smoke would rise and go out, but so would all our heat, and a couple of the kids have asthma, so cold air is just as bad as the smoke for them.”

“You’re absolutely right, which means we're, uh, just gonna have to clean the air.” Mac says. “In the meantime, use the breathing masks from the medical kits for the people who are in the most danger, and have everyone else tie something over their mouth and nose. The less smoke you all inhale, the better.” He hurries over to the wall where he’s written down his own list of supplies. It helps to be able to see them all at once, and be able to organize them and draw lines between them, rather than reading on a computer screen.

“Cardboard boxes, box fans…” He draws his finger across the glass, searching for the other item he knows is there somewhere. “Carbon filters.” He feels a surge of relief as he turns back around to Zoe, who now has the neck of her t-shirt pulled over her face. “I have an idea.

The ship is transporting activated carbon filters, which were gonna be used to clean the water at the research station, but we're gonna repurpose them and use them to make the air on board breathable. Zoe, can you get to the cargo room?”

She nods, then starts running. He looks away from the screen until her footsteps stop. She’s coughing again, harsher now, and when she speaks up her voice is panicky. “Mac, I can see the filters, but I can’t get to them.”

He looks up at the screen. Sure enough, there’s a heap of warped, twisted metal between her and the shelves with the filters. “The cargo hold is directly below the propulsion room. The explosion must've caused this damage.” Zoe nods, coughing. “How far away are they?”

“Fifteen feet, maybe twenty.” Zoe’s breathing is even harsher. He should have warned her not to run. But it’s too late to worry about that now, he has to focus.

“I need the exact distance. Jill, pull up schematics of that room.” He glances around the War Room, at the walls, at the chairs. He shoves two chairs out of the way, then looks from the glass wall to Matty.

“Um...Matty, I...I kind of need to break that.” He fidgets nervously, looking down at his hands.

“Why?”

“I need space so I can build the ship.”

“Okay.” He picks up a stool and smashes it against the glass. It takes a few tries, the War Room is designed to be a secured space, complete with bullet and assualt-proof glass, but eventually a panel gives out and shatters to the floor. “Uh, sorry about the mess, Matty. I’ll clean it up, I promise.”

“Just find a way to save that ship.” Matty says, and he nods. _I can do this._

* * *

Jack pushes open the door of the Phoenix, Riley following him, tapping away on her rig. “Okay, I have a location. An abandoned warehouse in the industrial district. Geez, you’d think these guys could get more original.”

“Doesn’t matter, if they’re good enough to defend it, and he is.” Jack shakes his head. “We’re not going after Mareks without some serious backup.” He’s already texted Patty, and she’s mobilizing her personal tac team. He just needs to get himself and Riley geared up, and they’ll be ready to hit the road.

He stops when he sees what’s going on at the War Room. Mac’s got some tangle of shelves, rope, and office furniture extending into the hallway, and he’s reaching into it all with what looks like a robotic claw. _What the actual heck? I was gone for like two hours!_  And there’s glass all over the floor. “Mac, did you _break_ the War Room?”

“Uh, maybe?” Mac turns around, looking slightly sheepish and very concerned. “How’d it go finding the guy who wants Riley’s dad dead?” Jack did tell him what he and Riley were going to do, he just left off the part about James. Mac doesn’t need that right now. Clearly, he has bigger problems.

“It’s going, we got a good lead and I think we’re gonna get the guy. What is all that?”

“It's a long story, but basically, if I can't figure out how to grab those soda cans, through all the rubble, then those kids on that boat are gonna die.” _Oh man._ Jack wonders if calling Mac in for this was a bad idea after all. _If anything happens to one of those kids he’s gonna blame himself._ He doesn’t need that right now.

“It's too bad you can't just yank that thing off the shelf, the way Luke did on Hoth before that ice monster attacked. You know, use the Force.” Jack knows Mac’s getting way too stressed out, he’s got to make him recalibrate. _He’s got that look in his eyes that he gets when his mind’s going way too fast and he can’t accept failing._ He’s carrying the weight of thirty-two lives on his shoulders right now, and it’s crushing him.

Mac turns around, eyes wide. “Wait, what did you just say?”

 _He’s got an idea._ “Use the Force,” Jack repeats.

“That's it!” Mac claps Jack on the shoulder, hard, and Jack takes a step back. “That's it, I'm gonna use the Force!”

Jack has no idea what’s going on, but he knows a Mac breakthrough when he sees one. He walks off toward the tac room, still rubbing his shoulder. “Glad I could help.”

* * *

Mac drops the pole he was using to reach into the supply room and rushes back inside the War Room. “Zoe, forget that thing.”

“You came up with something else?” She asks.

“Um, actually my friend Jack did.”

“He did?” Cage asks, raising an eyebrow. “Remind me to get him an award.”

“We’re going to get those filters by using the Force.” Now it’s Zoe’s turn to look surprised.

“The Force?”

“Of gravity.” Mac grins. “We’re going to make the ship tilt, so that the filters come to you. So you’re going to need to have everyone who can, grab anything moveable and carry it as far to the stern as you can. Okay?” She nods, coughing.

Mac turns to look out the window, he can see Jack and Riley leading a tac team to the door. _What are they doing?_ He assumed that whoever was after Elwood would be some small time petty crook, according to Riley those are the only guys Elwood was capable of working with. But this looks serious. Like taking down Murdoc serious. _It can’t be him, right?_ Mac doesn’t think the man would do something as random as go after Riley’s father. _But he’s played more confusing games._ Mac still doesn’t understand why Murdoc showed so much restraint when he captured him. _I barely even have scars._ After their conversation when Murdoc was teaching him how to imitate him, Mac was expecting so much worse.

 _Nothing about that made sense._ Mac knows Murdoc didn’t have some sudden change of heart. So the fact that he’s still out there somewhere, unaccounted for, is absolutely terrifying. _He already proved he can take me whenever he wants._ He wonders if Murdoc just wants to know that he’s made Mac afraid of his own shadow. _But I know that’s not all he wants._

It’s going to take some time for Zoe and the students to move everything. He hurries out into the hall to talk to Jack. “What’s going on?”

“Elwood kicked the wrong hornet’s nest and now he’s got a pissed off Ukrainian arms dealer after him,” Riley says. “This guy’s bad news.”

“Looks like it.” Mac doesn’t know how this even happened, but there’s a deep relief that it wasn’t Murdoc they’re going after. At the same time, that’s hardly reassuring. _We still have no idea where he is._

Jack and Riley both look a little tense. More so than pre-tactical assault tense. Neither of them are looking him exactly in the eye, and he doesn’t know why. But then Zoe says something from the War Room, and he turns around to go see what’s happened. When he looks up again, Jack, Riley, and the tac team are gone.

* * *

EMPTY HOUSE

PRETTY EASY TO BREAK INTO

Bozer rifles through the drawers in the desk until he finds a paperclip, then inserts it into the cuff lock. Doing this is going to take precious time, but it’ll also give them the chance to split up, if need be. They lost the dogs miles back, at a small creek, and this house has a vehicle Bozer’s fairly sure he can hotwire.

The cuffs snap open with a click, and Leanna pulls her hand free. “Where’d you learn how to do that?”

“Mac taught me.” They were kids, goofing around, when he did. Bozer doesn’t really like that memory, because not five years later Mac was in cuffs for real, and that time he wasn’t able to get out.  _He_ _could've_ _escaped any time he wanted, but he truly believed he deserved to be punished. He thought he really had killed_ _that man._

“How is he?” Leanna asks.

“Ok, last I heard. Jack’s watching out for him.” Bozer breathes out a shaky sigh. _He was so close to dying._ “But if he scares me like that again, I’m gonna kill him myself.”

Leanna smiles. “I’m glad he’s okay. And I’m glad you came back.” She looks away. “I’m sorry for being so insensitive. In the interrogation training.”

“I already said it’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay.” Leanna sighs. “While you were gone, I...I did some more digging. I don’t know...How did you survive it all?” She leans against the table. “You lost your father, your little brother, and then your mother…”

“Mac taught me that giving up, letting life beat you, was never an option.” Bozer sighs, grabbing a glass from the cupboard, filling it with water, and handing it to Leanna. “I might not have had the guts to turn myself in, but I sure as hell wasn’t gonna waste the freedom Mac sacrificed so that I could walk away.”

“I think that’s what he would have wanted,” Leanna says softly. “I don’t know him, but I do know you, and I think you two are a lot alike. And I _know_ you would never want Mac to be punished if you could stop it.” She stands up, wrapping her hand around his still-cuffed wrist. “What happened, happened. Bozer, ask yourself this. Would you rather it’s you that regrets not turning yourself in, or Mac that would have to regret being the reason his best friend went to prison?”

 _The guilt would have torn him apart._ And Bozer already knows he would rather live with this for the rest of his life than make Mac suffer from a minute more pain than he’s already endured. “You did sacrifice for him. Bozer, your sacrifice was to keep living, and to live with what happened.” Leanna isn’t looking away, and he can’t force himself to either. “What you did means he doesn’t carry that guilt. So you should start learning to live with yours.”

Bozer nods. If he says anything else, he’s going to cry, and he really doesn’t want to do that. He swallows. “I’m gonna go see if this guy has a first aid kit.”

He doesn’t let the tears fall until there’s a wall and a door between him and Leanna. He leans back, taking a deep, shuddering breath.

And then he hears a thud, and the grunting, panting sounds that come from a fight. Someone’s attacked Leanna. He flings open the door and rushes into the kitchen. He has no plan. But he isn’t going to let Leanna down.

There’s a guy in black tac gear pinning Leanna down by her throat to the table. She’s thrashing and fighting, but he can see that she’s struggling to breathe, and her struggles are getting weaker and weaker.

He grabs the landline phone off the counter and smashes it into the tac geared goon’s head. “Can you hear me now?” He asks, then glances at Leanna, who’s coughing and grabbing at her neck. “You okay?”

“I will be.” She gasps. “Thank you.”

A phone chimes, and Bozer glances at her. “Uh, that one wasn’t me.” He starts rifling the goon’s pockets, pulling out a phone. There’s a text message blinking unread on it. “Five teams neutralized. Three still in play.”

“Then we’d better get moving before his friends show up.” Leanna coughs, still rubbing her throat.

“You good to go?” She nods. And then he runs for the garage.

* * *

Mac watches as Zoe and a few more of the students finish moving a massive piece of lab equipment to the back of the ship. Zoe returns to the camera, brushing dirt off her hands. “Is this really gonna work?”

“The physics is sound,” Mac says, knowing that Zoe will find that way more reassuring than Jack does. “We just need enough ballast in the stern to raise the bow five degrees. And if we do that, the filters should fall off the shelf and roll right down the hall to you.”

“Okay, Mac, everything that can be moved has been.”

“Okay, the rest is up to gravity.” Mac says. “You and all the students are going to be the last of the ballast. Everyone move as far back as possible, and just stay there.” Zoe pulls the rest of the students back with her, toward the heap of random junk in the stern. And then Mac hears the soft creaking groans of shifting metal.

Zoe coughs, but she’s smiling. “It's working. Tilting.”

“Yeah, it is!” Mac can’t hide his excitement. This is going to work. It’s going to be fine. They can do this.

He’s whispering in tandem with Zoe. “Come on, come on.” The ship continues creaking and groaning, and Mac watches through the computer camera as the filter canisters wobble on the shelf. _Please let them actually make it through the rubble._ If they bounce off the floor when they fall and the trajectory changes... _At least one of them will come out, right? There’s a one in six chance, those are good odds, right?_ At the very least, one should come close enough to grab…

And then there’s a clatter, and the three front canisters topple over. Mac watches, holding his own breath as the metallic filters clatter off the floor and begin rolling. Two find their way through the piles of wreckage and roll into the hall.

“Yes!” Mac shouts. “That’s enough, go get them!”

Coughing, Zoe holds up the two filters. “We got them. Now what?”

“Now we build you an air filter.” Mac smiles.

“Please hurry, Mac. It's really hard to breathe.” She’s coughing harder, despite the cloth covering her nose and mouth.

“I know, but we're gonna change that. Now, let's get to work.” He grabs two of the cardboard boxes.

“Where did you learn to do all this?” Zoe asks. “There’s three engineering students on board and none of them even thought about using things like this.”

“Um…” Mac doesn’t want to explain it all. He’s gotten more...well, not comfortable, but at least accepting of, explaining his past to people. But he doesn’t want _Zoe_ to know. He can’t bear the thought of the betrayal, the anger in her eyes. Of her judgment.

“I...I learned to improvise, because the places I worked didn’t always have the normal equipment.” That at least sounds good.

She smiles. “I did two years with the Peace Corps before grad school, I know what you mean.” _Oh you have no idea._ “But you...you think about the world in a whole different way. I’ve never met anyone like you.”

He smiles, just a little. _But she likes the version of you she thinks she knows. She doesn’t know the real you. She wouldn’t like that one._ But maybe, just maybe, she would. Maybe she would understand that he did what he did to try to save people. To make the world a better place. Because clearly she believes in that.

“Zoe…”

“Yeah? Am I taking this filter apart right?” She asks, holding it up. Mac sighs. He’ll tell her when this is over. _I have to._

* * *

“Alright everyone, stay sharp.” Jack motions to the tac team fanning out behind him. “Riley’s intel puts Mareks in that building right now.” Lucien Carter, the team leader, nods. “Mareks is a high value target, and we want to take him alive if possible.”

“Yes sir.” The team moves to cover all visible exits. Jack and Riley are going to breach, and two team members will then seal off the stairwells as well.

“Heat signature puts him on first floor, north corner,” Riley says. She sets down her rig and grabs her rifle. “Let’s go.”

Jack kicks in the door, bursting into the dusty room. He can just see a shadowy figure in the corner Riley described. “Roman Mareks! You’re surrounded! Put your weapons down!” There’s a strange clicking noise from the corner, and then a gunshot rings out from beside Jack. Mareks falls with a shout, something metallic rolling away from him along the concrete, and there’s a disconcerting beeping coming from it.

“Chemical grenade!” Jack yells.

“He wasn’t going to blow himself up!” Riley shouts back, and Jack freezes in horror, watching as she races across the room, grabs the rapidly blinking device, yanks up something on the floor, and flings the grenade down. She dives to the ground just as a low rumble shakes the floor, knocking Jack backward.

“What the hell was that?”

“He was going to use the grenade as a diversion and escape through the utility tunnels,” Riley says. “North corner had the internal entrance to them, I saw it on the schematics when we were planning the breach.”

“So you threw the grenade into them instead?” Jack asks, helping her to her feet. “You probably just knocked out half the block’s electricity and cable.” She turns to where Mareks is bleeding on the floor, clutching his shoulder. “Why did you want to kill Elwood Davis?”

“Who the hell are you people?” Mareks growls.

“Listen, bud, I ask the questions here.” Jack leans down, pointing his gun at the man’s face. “I know you know what this means, cause you threatened one of our informants with it last night.” He raises an eyebrow. “Ready to have a little heart to heart?”

“Jack!” Riley’s picking something up off the floor. A seemingly unassuming sheet of notebook lined paper, with a string of gibberish on it.

“What’s this?” Jack asks, picking Mareks up and slamming him against a wall. “Who are you talking to in code?”

“I tell you nothing,” Mareks rasps.

“Then I guess I might as well kill you.” Jack snarls. “Are you gonna start coughing up information, or your teeth?”

“Not...mine.” The man chokes out. “Found it.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Listen, it’s in your best interests to tell him, because he’s been in an arm-ripping mood all day, and I don’t think you want him to do that,” Riley says.

“It was in a house,” Mareks says. “I was tracking a target. It was the last location I could trace him to before the trail went cold. And this was the only thing inside that could lead me to him.” Mareks coughs, and blood spatters his lips.

“Oh, my bad, I guess I didn’t totally miss the lung,” Riley says. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you taken care of in medical so you have a nice long life to spend in a secure black site.” She hands Mareks over to two of the other team members and steps aside with Jack.

Jack leans down to her, switching off his comms and motioning for her to do the same. “Riley, I think this is one of the clues James was leaving for Mac.”

She nods. “I’m going to ask Cage or Matty to work on him, but I bet when he talks he’ll tell us that target he was after was James.” Riley hands him the paper. “And this looks like the handwriting samples in his file.”

Jack glances at the paper, studying the apparent nonsense on it. “It’s a one-time pad cipher.” Jack says. “And I’ll bet anything that the takeout menu was the key.”

“So either something about those circled numbers would eventually have led us to that house, or Mareks surprised James before he was able to leave the next clue somewhere.” Jack nods, it doesn’t really matter, right now. They have the clue, that’s the important thing. “At least now we have something actionable for Mac.” She sighs.

Jack tucks the scrap of paper into a pocket. He’s not sure he’s ready for what they’ll find as a result. _What if this is the last one?_ The folded scrap in his pocket feels like a stone.

He’s gotten used to chasing clues, running all over the world after bits of the puzzle. It was easy to forget that at some point, the chase was going to end. _Maybe not today, but someday. James isn’t leaving these messages for no reason. He wants to be found._ And that’s the most terrifying thing of all. _Whatever he wants with Mac, it can’t be anything good._

* * *

Mac smiles as Zoe sits down in front of the computer again. “Hey, your air purifier is still working perfectly, and all 31 students are accounted for.” She glances around her, at the now clear air and the lights. “Thanks for keeping me company. I really appreciate it.”

“Of course,” He smiles. “And the Coast Guard rescue ship is only three hours away, so nothing left to do now but wait.” He looks down at the twisted wire in his fingers.

“Hey, what are you playing with over there?”  Zoe asks.

“It's an old habit. My boss isn’t really a fan, but you had paper clips on the ship, so…” He holds up the tiny model ship and Zoe smiles wide, laughing.

“Did you actually just make that?”

He chuckles. “Just something to keep my hands busy.”

“And clear your head?” He nods, and she holds up a tiny origami flower. “It was kind of hard to do when my fingers were so cold, but once you got the heat back on…” She smiles. “You know when the Coast Guard told me that they were patching me through to an engineer, the last thing I expected was a cute science geek who would save my life with random objects.”

“I'm halfway a world away. You saved your own life.”

“But you taught me how to,” She says. “Don’t pretend. We both know I couldn’t have done it without you.” He reaches up, feeling the outline of Jack’s dog tags. _Don’t devalue what you do. That’s James talking, kiddo. You’re so talented, no matter what he told you._

“So, the Phoenix Foundation. What's that all about?” Zoe asks.

“Well, we are a think tank and we specialize in...um...unconventional solutions to, well, unconventional problems.” He looks up at her, she’s grinning. “And after what I've seen today, you'd fit right in here.”

She chuckles. “Oh, yeah? Don't tease. This geeky grad student is buried under a mountain of debt and could use a job, preferably one on dry land.”

“Drop by when you get back to the States. I'll show you around. We could grab that ice cream.” He swallows. Maybe it’s impulsive, telling her to come see the place. But he does think she’d be great here. _The Phoenix could use someone like her around._ He tries to stifle the tiny voice in his head. You _could use someone like her around._

“Yeah? I'm actually gonna take you up on that.”

He has to tell her. He has to. Because sooner or later she’s going to find out. “Um, Zoe, you should know-”

There’s a low screech of metal tearing and groaning. Zoe jumps, glancing over her shoulder. “Uh, MacGyver, did you hear that?”

He nods, cringing. Whatever it was didn’t sound good.

The metallic groaning continues. “What is that?” Zoe asks, joining a couple of the students who are hurrying down the hall.  Suddenly Mac can hear water sloshing. “Oh, my God. The hull is being crushed inward. There's water coming in,” Zoe gasps.

Mac can see the damage, there’s a deep indentation in the metal and the ice is scraping against it, gouging deep and snapping rivets. Water’s pouring in through the torn sections. Mac can only stare in horror as the pressure widens the damage even more.

 _What happened? How did this...What if it’s my fault? What if when we tilted the ship, we made the ice tear at the hull?_ He can’t stop the thoughts from whirling around his head. _I did this. I have to find a way to fix it._

“That compartment has a watertight door,” Jill speaks up, her voice strained. Mac can see that Zoe’s already shoving at it, but clearly that’s not good enough, since he can hear the students’ feet splashing through the water on the floor.

“Something's wrong with the door,” Zoe pants.

“Can you show me?” She holds up the computer’s camera, and Mac flinches when he sees what’s wrong. “The compression gasket's torn, so even if you close it, it's won’t be watertight. We’ve got to find a way to seal it now.” He tries to force his hands to stop shaking. _You have to fix this. You have to._

* * *

STOLEN CAR

LUCKILY WITH A FULL TANK OF GAS

Bozer stares ahead at the road. Every car that passes feels like a threat, and he’s paranoid about headlights behind him. But the last highway mile marker told him they’re only twenty miles from the school.

“I never really thanked you,” Leanna says suddenly. “For coming back for me.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“No.” She looks up at him. “I know you better than that.” He nods, smiling.

“We’re a team. And Team District Twelve is gonna crush this.”

“Katniss and Peeta,” Leanna grins. “The real question is, can you bake?”

“I worked in a _restaurant,_ Leanna. I can make croissants that will melt in your mouth. And Mac will _always_ eat my waffles, which is kind of high praise because that boy gets too distracted to eat way too often.” He chuckles. “And if you give me a little time and let me make a batch of starter, my homemade sourdough is to die for.”

“Does this mean I can skip breakfast tomorrow and come by your apartment?” Leanna asks.

“Sounds good to me. Baking sounds like the perfect way to relax after this insanity.” He nods out the window. “Almost there.”

“Um...Bozer?” Leanna says suddenly. “Four bikes, behind us, coming up fast!” He glances in the rearview, and sure enough there are four motorcycles hot on their tail.

Bozer whips around a curve, trying to remember everything Jack and spy school taught him about precision driving. “Look, I'm pretty sure this is a training exercise, but if I'm wrong and it isn't, then we are definitely gonna die before we get back to school. And I want you to know, I’m really glad I met you...”

“The school!” Leanna shouts. And then they’re smashing through the gates, and Bozer hears metal screeching and slams on the brakes. Blinding lights shine in through the window, and he can hear someone yelling through a bullhorn.

“Exit the vehicle now!” Bozer flinches.

“Um, so….this is kinda the part in the movies where they think they’re gonna die and everyone starts confessing their feelings...and so the truth is...Leanna, I really, really like you. And I’ve loved every minute of working with you, and you’re amazing, and I don’t mind dying if it means that I got to meet you…” And then he can’t say anything else because Leanna’s lips are on his.

“I think you're amazing, too, Bozer,” She whispers, and nothing else matters in that moment. He’s dimly aware that someone else is yelling his name, but he doesn’t care, he only wants to hear Leanna say it.

And then she pulls back and the haziness fades a little. He can hear Glover shouting. “Wilt Bozer. Leanna Martin. You just passed your final training exercise. Congratulations.”

“Yeah!” He whoops, leaning in for another kiss. He doesn’t pull away until someone bangs on his door and yells “Assembly in five, get your asses moving!” _No respect for romance, huh?_

He and Leanna walk through the doors, joining a small group of fellow students. Over half the people from his classes are no longer in the room.

Glover walks to the front, her face stern, but the barest trace of a smile crossing her lips.

“If you're in this room, you just passed the most intense training the U.S. government has to offer. You are now entering a world of secrets and sacrifice.” Bozer smiles at Leanna. _We did it._ “As far as anyone is concerned, you were never here. So look to your right. Look to your left.”

This time, Bozer keeps staring on purpose, and Leanna smiles. “Your other left.”

And then Glover’s voice cuts an icy knife through the warm haze. “Say goodbye to these people forever. For security reasons, you will never be allowed to see each other again.”

* * *

Mac looks up from the pail in the middle of the room to Zoe’s video feed. “How’s it going?”

“Okay, we've mixed the resin. It's thick, like Play-Doh.” She lifts a glob of it on a spoon to show him.

“That's perfect. Now spread it around the door's inner edge. It's safe to use your fingers. Just make sure you get it all the way around the door jamb.”

Zoe begins doing just that, but then she frowns and turns back to the camera. “Are you sure it's gonna be thick enough to completely seal the door?”

“Yeah, it'll expand when you add heat.” His hand is clenched around the half-unbent paperclip in it, and he can feel blood warm between his fingers. Jill taps him on the shoulder, tugging him toward the back of the room and lowering her voice.

“Mac, I think you need to see this. According to this model, even if we seal that door, once the backup generator room floods, the ship will have taken on too much water. It's still gonna sink.”

“How much time do they have?” His voice sounds hoarse in his own ears.

“From the moment it fills, 45 minutes, tops. Add the roughly ten minutes it'll take for the room to flood, plus the two to three minutes the students will have before hypothermia hits...Which gives them about an hour before that ship absolutely needs to be there.”

“Where's the icebreaker now? What's the time to intercept?” Cage asks.

Matty looks up from her tablet. “59 minutes, with some margin of error.”

Mac turns back to the screen, heart pounding, breath shallow and shaky. He has to stay calm. Zoe and those students need him to stay calm.

“Putty's in place.” Zoe holds up the tangle of wires that matches the one sitting on Matty’s desk. “I’m about to attach the detonator you said would trigger the reaction remotely.” Mac nods.

“Make sure that the leads are connected properly, we need it to spark,” Mac says. She nods, jamming the wires into the putty. “Okay, hope this works. Three, two, one.”

Mac presses his detonator at the same time Zoe does, the pail full of resin makes a glubbing sound and grey foam rises over the sides, spilling onto the table.

But he can’t see any around the door on the screen. Clearly, neither can Zoe. “Mac, nothing's happening. Mine's not working. Okay, check the connections on the remote and the detonator itself.”

Zoe’s hands are shaking, and so is her voice. “I-I don't know. Everything's connected properly.” She’s starting to hyperventilate.

“Zoe, just breathe, I'm gonna walk you through the build again, all right?” _I need Jack. I need him because I’m panicking too, I can’t do this alone. I’ve got to save them and I don’t know how._

“Oh, my God, the hole's getting bigger! There's water everywhere.” Zoe gasps. “There's no way to stop it!”

“There's gotta be something else I can use to trigger this reaction remotely. What if we…” He can’t think. He can’t breathe. There’s nothing left. He’s exhausted and scared and he has to do something or those kids are going to die. _I have to fix it, I have to fix it, I have to…_ “Damn it, we've used everything!” He can’t think. It’s too much.

Zoe speaks up, and there’s a determined pain that Mac knows for too well, and it sends a shock through him as icy as the water covering the floor of the ship. “Wait. We haven't used everything.”

“What do you mean? What haven't we used?” He hopes to God it’s not what he thinks but he already knows. _She’s like me. She’s too much like me._

“Me. We haven't used me. I can seal the door from the inside.”

Mac shakes his head. “Zoe, help is only 30 minutes away. We can put you guys in the lifeboats earlier, we whip something up to keep you warm.”

“No.” Her voice is steady, broken but determined. “Going out there even a minute early would risk the lives of my kids, and I won't do that, not when this is a sure thing.”

“There has to be another way. There's always another way.” _No one is going to die. No, no, no._

“Mac-” He can’t listen to her.

“Something I overlooked.” There has to be. This is his fault. The ship is sinking because he couldn’t figure out anything other than tilting it, if she dies it’s on him, he can’t let her die, he can’t he can’t he can’t...

“Mac. If I don't seal this door right now, the whole ship will sink before the Coast Guard gets here. You did the math yourself.” He can’t listen to this. He can’t. _No, this can’t be happening. It can’t be._ “There's only one number that matters anymore, okay? 31. That's how many lives are outside this room.”

No, I can't let you do this, Zoe.” He knows he’s crying. He doesn’t care. _No, no, no._ He’s shaking and numb and he feels like he’s going to throw up, and he wants to curl up in a corner and sob because this isn’t _right,_ she shouldn’t have to die. There has to be another way, there’s always another way...He can’t breathe.

Then come and stop me, MacGyver.” She smiles sadly. “You know how I know this is right? Because, even though I don't really know you, I feel like this is what you would do if you were here.” He swallows. _Please, please, think of something now, save her, you have to save her._ But the only thing left in his head is fear and grief. “So, uh you just said it needs heat to react, so if I light the resin directly, it'll burn, right?” He nods. Zoe takes a deep, shaky breath. “Can we do this together?”

“Okay.” He pulls out a single match and lights it, holding it up. He can see her through a flickering combination of tears and flame, for a moment it looks like she has wings of fire, like a real Phoenix. And then she touches her match to the resin, there’s a soft whoosh, and  he sees the grey foam expand. Zoe drops her match into the water, turning back to where she set the computer on a shelf, looking at him with wide, teary eyes. “I really hope this works.

“It will.” Mac swallows hard. “It will.” He rests shaking hands on his legs. “I’m so sorry, Zoe, I’m so sorry…” He can’t _breathe…_

“Mac. Mac, it’s alright.” Zoe doesn’t look scared anymore. She looks gentle and concerned and sad. “It’s okay. This is my choice.” _She shouldn’t have to try and comfort me, she’s the one dying._ He swallows hard, trying to get a grip, trying to be okay, because she doesn’t need to spend her last few minutes trying to make _him_ feel better.

And he can’t let her die believing a lie. “Zoe, what I was trying to tell you, before…” He swallows. “I’m not who you think I am.”

She looks at him, tears glimmering in her eyes. “I know. I figured it out hours ago, I knew I remembered your name. But...what matters is that you saved the lives of thirty-one students on this ship, and because you did that, I know that you’re not what they called you. You’re a hero, MacGyver.” Her voice cracks and shudders. “That’s all I care about.”

He takes a shuddering breath. _Why, why is this happening?_

Zoe glances around her. “Uh, the water's rising really fast now.” She gasps. “Oh, God. It's colder than I thought it would be. Colder than I thought anything would be, but…” She shakes her head, then smiles. “So this is what you do at the Phoenix Foundation? Save lives every day?”

“We try.” He chokes on tears.

“You did that, okay? So don't forget that. You did everything you could, and so many parents are gonna be so grateful.” She’s still trying to be the one who comforts him, even as she’s dying. _Maybe she’s more like Jack than me, after all._

“You did this, Zoe. I just talked to you.”

There’s a moment of silence. The water’s getting closer and closer to the shelf now. “Uh h-hey, Mac?” Zoe says softly.

“Yeah?”

“I wish we could have met in person.”

“Me, too.” _I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe._

“I w-would've liked to see your think tank. And share that ice cream.”

“H-Hey, you never told me. What's your favorite flavor?”

“Rocky road,” She says, panting against the icy water, her breath fogging.

“That's mine, too.” He smiles through the tears, he has to. For her.

“I know a great place. You would love it,” She says. “It’s down by the shore and it’s only open in su-” and then there’s a surge of static and the screen shows nothing but flickering white and grey. She’s gone.

Mac’s chest feels like someone reached inside, grabbed his heart and lungs, and crushed them all together into a shapeless, useless lump heavier than a neutron star, heavier than a sinking ship. He’s the one drowning. He can’t breathe, he’s choking on the tears in his throat. He stands up sharply, pushing past Matty and Cage, and runs to the door. _This is my fault. I failed. And she died._

* * *

“You weren’t wrong. Your croissants are incredible.” Leanna perches on the edge of the counter, swinging her legs over the side. “I want to take a whole box home with me.”

Bozer thinks this should be the best moment of his life. He’s making chocolate croissants at three a.m. with the girl of his dreams, and he just officially became a real spy. But instead, it just hurts. Because in three hours, he and Leanna will be getting in different cars to different planes to opposite sides of the country.

“They’re best fresh anyway,” He says. “But you can have any that are leftovers.”

“I’d ask for the recipe, but bread stuff never turns out right when I do it.” Leanna frowns. “I’m good with gumbo, though. And sweet potato fries.”

“You would _love_ my uncle in Louisiana.” Bozer says. “You a fan of hot sauce?”

“The hotter the better.” She grins. “I chugged a shot of ghost pepper sauce in college on a dare. I felt it later, but everyone thought I was Wonder Woman.” _Oh, she’d be fun on truth or dare night. And Jack would hate it._

“I don’t want this to have to end,” he gasps, suddenly, impulsively. Bozer hasn’t been truly impulsive in years. He’s learned that’s what gets you killed. But damn it, Mac almost _died_ last week and life is too short, especially in this business, to not make it count. “What if it didn’t have to?”

“What are you talking about?” Leanna asks, setting down her half-finished pastry.

“What if we just…” He stops. “I’ve been thinking. About ways around all this. How we could stay in touch.”

Leanna’s eyes widen. “We’d be going against every rule in the book…”

“You do remember I used to work with a vigilante, right?” Bozer asks. “Sometimes there’s a good reason not to follow the rules, and I know that better than almost anyone.” He smiles. “Look, if spy school has taught me anything, it's to always trust your instincts. And every instinct I've got is telling me I can't let you go.”

“I mean...they did just spend three weeks teaching us how to set up and carry out clandestine meetings.”

“And how to secretly communicate.”

Leanna pauses. “But if we get caught, we'll lose our jobs. We might even go to prison.”

“You already know that doesn’t scare me.” He pulls her close. “We’re gonna do this. Because I’m not gonna regret anything else. Not anymore.” _I may not have stood by Mac, all those years ago. But I’m not going to live with any more wasted chances._

* * *

MAC’S HOUSE

WAY TOO QUIET

“Mac?” Jack steps into the house as quietly as he can. _He shouldn’t be alone tonight._ Jack worries about anyone who’s lost someone on an op. The first time he and Riley came home a man down, he sat up with her all night and let her cry and scream and swear she was never working in the field again. And then he watched the sun rise and watched her pick herself up and dust herself off and run three miles until they were both so exhausted he had to call an Uber to get them home, and start to find a way to push forward.

Matty told him everything when he and Riley got back from bringing in Mareks. The clue from James is safely tucked away in the War Room desk; Mac doesn’t need that to deal with on top of everything else. He’s already afraid the kid’s shattering.

Jack can’t shake the memory of the locker room after that fiasco with the quicksand. Of Mac trying to hide the thin white lines on his ribs, and finally breaking down and reluctantly admitting to Jack that they were self-inflicted. “ _For every one I couldn’t save. I had to remind myself that failure has a price.”_ And Jack is genuinely afraid that there’s going to be a new scar added to that collection by morning.

 _None of this was his fault. But Mac never believes that._ He wonders where Mac is now. He didn’t answer the door, and he didn’t come to make Mickey stop barking and jumping at Jack. That doesn’t mean anything good, not in Jack’s opinion. And when he reached down to pet the dog and calm him down, there was a suspiciously damp spot on Mickey's shoulder. _Oh kiddo._  

 _Damn it, you better not be doing it now, kid._ He really doesn’t want to have to break into a locked bathroom and pull a bloody razor blade out of his kid’s hand. And then he sees Mac’s silhouette against the deck railing, staring out at the city lights. He walks over and leans on the railing, watching Mac quietly. Mac is turning his Swiss Army knife over and over in his hands, and when he looks at Jack, his eyes are shining with tears.

“I failed her, Jack,” he says softly. “After everything, she died.”

“That was her choice. She did it to save everyone else on that ship,” Jack says softly. “And don’t tell me you wouldn’t have done the same damn thing if it was you there.” He wraps his hand around Mac’s. “You know that’s the only way it was gonna work. You two saved a lot of kids’ lives today.”

“But _no one_ should have had to die,” Mac whispers. “I should have been able to figure it out.”

“Didn’t they ever make you do those crazy train track philosophy exercises in school?” Jack asks. “Where you can save one person or a whole town?”

“Or you can stop the train and save them all.” _Yeah, you probably failed that unit for bringing physics and engineering into the whole thing._

“Sometimes you have to make those hard choices in the real world, kiddo.” Jack tries to make Mac meet his eyes. “And the amount of times I’ve seen you more than willing to lay down your life to save everyone else is, frankly, a little scary to me. So don’t you stand there and blame yourself for someone else doing the same damn thing you woulda done if you were there.” He finally catches Mac’s eye. “Because damn it, Mac, you are not any less valuable than she was. You are _not_ any less valuable than anyone else out there, you hear me?”

 _Okay, pot calling the kettle black, if Mac went and did something like that you’d be a freaking wreck, you know you would._ He sighs, making sure his tone stays gentle. _Don’t be harsh, he’s already beating himself up._ “I know this is really, really hard for you to accept. But it happened, and we can’t change that. And those kids are alive right now, and that’s what Zoe would have wanted.”

“But it’s my fault.” Mac chokes back a sob. “I told them to tilt the ship. And then the ice…”

“Oh kiddo. It’s not your fault. You did what you had to do, trying to save everyone’s lives. You made the best decision you could, in that moment. And so did Zoe. This isn’t your fault any more than it’s hers.”

“She didn’t deserve…”

“No, she sure didn’t. But if life was fair, there’s a lot of things that wouldn’t happen.” _I wouldn’t have spent all day running around trying to make sure Riley’s deadbeat father stayed alive long enough for her to get the closure she needs. Mac wouldn’t be walking with a limp right now, he sure as hell wouldn’t have spent two years in prison, and he wouldn’t have scars I need to worry are gonna get added to tonight._ “And now we just have to keep moving forward, do the best we can with what life is.”

“I don’t want to just accept it,” Mac gasps out, the tears are starting to fall now and he’s shaking. “I wanted to make it better, and…”

“And you saved a lot of lives that no one else could have. Mac, you go out there every day and tip the scales a little bit so the world has a little more good and light in it. And that is all anyone can do.” Jack’s come so close to losing his own grip on that. _When all you see, every day, is the worst the world has to offer, you wonder if what you do matters._ And then kids like Mac and Riley come along, with a hopeful fire in them that the real world hasn’t managed to snuff out yet, and Jack remembers why he does what he does.

Mac looks down at the knife in his hands and takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I need you to hold this for me.” He holds out the knife, hand shaking. “I don’t trust myself tonight.”

“Okay. If that’s what you need right now, that’s what I’m gonna do. Here, let me have it.” Mac’s fingers don’t seem to want to let go of the knife. “It’s okay, kiddo. You don’t need that right now.” Jack can’t stand to think that the same tool Mac uses to save their lives and countless others’ every time they’re in the field is the one he would use to punish himself. _When I imagined the other times, I imagined a razor blade, like Riley said she used to use._ He never thought about Mac using his own pocketknife. But it makes a sick kind of sense.

“Thank you,” Mac whispers.

“I’m gonna stay with you as long as you need, okay?” Jack says, leaning his own elbows on the railing. His mind won’t stop whirring with all the things Mac could find even though his knife is off limits. _Scissors_ (and his stomach clenches at the memory of watching the kid stab himself behind a different locked door) _, knives, a razor..._ There are too many ways an inventive kid like Mac could find a way to hurt himself. _I think this might be the first time I wish he wasn’t so resourceful._

“I really, really wanted to.” Mac mumbles. Jack doesn’t need him to explain what he’s talking about. “But I knew you’d be mad, that you’d hate that I did it and be disappointed.” He swallows. “I didn’t want to make you upset.”

“Oh kiddo.” Jack puts his arm around Mac’s shoulders, the kid is shivering even though it’s not too terribly cold tonight. _I’d get up and get him a blanket but I think he needs the human contact more right now._ “You know that no matter what you do, I’m not gonna get angry with you like that, right?” He rubs a hand up and down Mac’s back. “I know sometimes when you get hurt, it seems like I’m mad.” He vividly remembers screaming at Mac through that glass door, scolding him for locking himself in a room with a deadly toxin and then stabbing himself on top of that. “But I’m just scared. Because I don’t want to lose you.” He runs his hand up into Mac’s hair, and the motion seems to soothe the kid a little. “I don’t ever want you to feel like you’re gonna make me hate you if you tell me about something like this, okay?”

Mac nods slowly. “I know. I just don’t want you to worry.”

“I would worry more if you hid whatever was wrong, okay?” Jack knows this is probably going to be ground they cover a lot more than once. The kid has trust issues that have been burned into him since he was five years old, and Jack can’t even imagine what James would have reacted like under similar circumstances. _He probably would have called Mac weak and a disappointment. Told him that what happened today meant he failed._ It’s small wonder Mac is ashamed to ever show the broken sides of himself. James taught him that wasn’t what he ever wanted to see, and Mac always tries to be the perfect child. _He can be falling apart on the inside, but God forbid he ever show that to anyone._ When they finally find that bastard, Jack’s going to make sure the man knows just how much he has to answer for.

 _He broke a wonderful, sweet, kind boy, and made him afraid to be human._ “Mac, I’m never going to be mad at you. I might be really, really sorry you felt like that was the only thing you could do, that you thought it was the way to deal with everything, but I will _not_ be angry.”

“I know.” Mac’s whisper is almost too soft to hear. “I just don’t want to make you sad.”

“Kiddo, that’s part of life. I want you to know you can come tell me whatever you have to, okay?” He gently pulls Mac away from the edge of the deck, back toward the fire pit. Mac collapses onto a bench, Jack on one side of him, Mickey on the other. The dog begins licking his cheeks, swiping at the salty tears, and Mac doesn't push him away. "I'm not going anywhere tonight, Mac." 

Mac nods again, burrowing in closer to Jack’s side. “It’s so cold tonight,” he whispers.

It really isn’t, but Jack gets the sense that not all of Mac is on that deck in the Hollywood Hills. Some part of him is trapped on that sinking ship. And Jack isn’t leaving until he rescues him. _We’re not losing anyone else to the ocean tonight._


	11. Vigilante+Alibi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has some flashbacks to Mac's time in prison, and the non-con isn't graphic, but it is there. I'm going to mark the flashback that deals with it directly with the same ### that I used for 107 so you can skip that part if you want.

### 211-Vigilante+Alibi

NEW YORK

THIRTY-EIGHT STORIES OFF THE GROUND

THE ELEVATOR IS BROKEN

“So, you’re telling me I climbed _thirty-eight_ flights of stairs because James’s cryptic little note that we found on an arms dealer _might_ mean that there’s a clue up here?” Jack pants.

“I said I’m ninety-five percent sure I cracked the code properly.” Mac says. He doesn’t even sound winded.

“Why did we have to do it in these stupid outfits?”

“Because it’s Christmas and there are a hundred Santas on a New York City block, if someone sees us we can get away pretty easily, just blend in.” Mac sighs. “I do hate this stupid beard though.” He rubs at his face. “It itches.”

“So take it off,” Jack says. “No one else is in here dude, it’s fine.” Mac pulls the offending thing off and stuffs it in a pocket. _Yeah, he really just can’t pull off the bearded look._ Jack grins. “So your magic decoder ring paper, did it happen to tell us where in this apartment James hid whatever it is he left you?”

“No. It just had the address and the apartment number.” Mac frowns. “I’m honestly just surprised that really was one of the clues.”

“Yeah, according to Mareks, he tracked James to a house in San Diego, and I guess he surprised him before James could do whatever he was going to with it.”

“San Diego?” Mac asks.

“Yeah, I told you that three days ago, dude, as soon as Cage got it out of him.”

“The circled numbers. It was the San Diego zip code.” Mac stops tearing apart the room they’re in and slaps his forehead. “And I bet the ones he underlined in the prices would have given me the house number.” Jack knows that now the kid’s gonna start fretting about not having been good enough to play James’s game. _He always feels like he can’t disappoint that man, even though James is a total sleazebag who builds weapons of mass destruction._

“We’d have gotten there eventually. Maybe I should go down to the basement and thank Mareks for saving us the trip. You think he’d consider a busted jaw an appropriate gift?”

“He might appreciate it, when Cage is done with him.” Jack nods. Sam’s pretty scary.

“But seriously, kiddo. Don’t give yourself a hard time about not gettin’ that clue right away. You’ve had a rough few weeks since we found it. Give yourself a break.” They’d barely gotten their hands on that takeout menu before they had the whole VX mess, and then…

Jack wishes Matty’s never called Mac in for the R.V. Bancroft disaster. Because ever since Zoe died, the poor kid’s been blaming himself. As much as Jack tries to talk him out of it, Mac insists that it was his decision to tilt the ship that made the ice tear through the hull. He’s showed Jack the formulas he wrote out at three a.m. because he can’t sleep thinking about it. Jack’s never seen Mac get like this. But Bozer has, and as soon as he got home, he was taking over.

He’d taken Jack out on the deck and had a heart-to-heart with him one afternoon after Mac finally exhausted himself working on his bike and fell asleep on the couch. _‘The first time he lost someone out there, I thought he was going to kill himself. I mean, not on purpose, really, even though I was scared of that too. But he stopped eating, he couldn’t sleep, and I could see the blood in the sink even when he tried to clean it up.’_ Jack thinks it’s horrible watching it happen now; and he’s seen more than one fellow soldier struggle to deal with losing someone in the field. _‘I honestly thought it was gonna be Deja, someday, that I might have to take the razor away from; she took so much to heart and losing Jerry crushed her. I never thought it was gonna be Mac.’_

Listening to Bozer describe trying to pull his best friend out of that dark place, knowing he couldn’t just take him to the school counselor and say ‘my friend’s depressed because he couldn’t save someone while he was out roaming the streets as a vigilante’, is devastating. _Boze was nineteen, he just lost a little brother and he had to watch Mac spiraling downward, he had to be terrified._

At least this time there’s the benefit of Mac having qualified people he can actually be honest with. Matty insisted he see a Phoenix therapist twice a week, and it seems like that’s helping. Jack knows Mac wasn’t enthusiastic about sharing any of this, less out of a sense of shame and more out of a fear that he was going to be judged for failing. _When Matty told him she wanted him to go see someone, I think he thought she was going to tell him he couldn’t be on the field team anymore._ Mac makes one mistake and thinks that means the world’s going to end.

“I’ve got something.” Mac is bent over, tapping at a baseboard. “This one’s hollow.” He pulls out his knife and pries it loose. In a tiny cubby cut into the wall, Jack sees something catch the gleam from his flashlight.

Mac pulls it out. “It’s a key.”

“You’re kidding? A literal key?”

Mac holds it up. “Yeah. But not to a house. I remember this one. It...it’s to my mom’s jewelry box. She used to keep it on her dresser. When she died, D...James used to carry it in his pocket. I’d see him take it out and look at it sometimes when he was sitting in his chair at night.”

“Okay, so why…”

“He took the box with him when he left. I just remember that for a long time he’d always told me not to touch it. I guess he kept some of his important stuff in there.” Mac frowns. “But the key’s no good without it.”

“Maybe there’s another part of the code that tells you where the box is?”

“I don’t know.” Mac rubs a hand over his face. “I already missed the location he gave me from the menu…”

“Because you were in the hospital after locking yourself in a room with deadly gas. Dude, stop worrying about that. You were in no condition…”

“I know. That's the problem.” Mac says. “I’m not thinking straight, I’m missing things…”

“If this is about Zoe you stop it right now, okay?” Jack says, tapping Mac’s chest over where he knows his dog tags are hanging. “You did everything in your power. It wasn’t your fault.”

Mac sniffles, but swallows and shoves the key into his pocket. “Let’s go.” Jack nods, then groans as they hurry to the stairwell. _I can’t tell what hurts more, my feet or my ass._

* * *

MAC’S HOUSE

YES, THE CHRISTMAS TREE HAS A WHEEL HUB FOR A STAND

Riley pours herself a mug of homemade egg nog and leans on the counter. Bozer’s on the phone with someone, talking quietly; something about dead drops and presents and missing someone. _Dollars to donuts he stayed in touch with his spy school girlfriend._ Leanna Martin’s all he talked about when he got back, and she can’t blame him. _I just hope that if they do stick with it, he doesn’t get his heart broken._ Riley knows firsthand how bad relationships in the spy game can go. She doesn’t want to see Bozer end up like she did, skittish and afraid of commitment. It wouldn’t suit his outgoing, trusting nature.

“So, are we actually getting a pastrami this year?” She asks. It feels like forever since she showed up at the house to find Bozer kidnapped, Mac’s tether cut, and the pastrami burning on the grill. _Was it really only a year ago?_ So much has changed.

Bozer spins around looking slightly guilty, but he covers it well, pulling on hot pads and whipping a pan out of the oven. “Prepare to have your taste buds be wowed. The Bozer family secret sauce recipe is legendary.”

She raises an eyebrow at him. “I’m going to require proof of that, you know.”

“Well, in thirty more minutes…” He shoves the pan back into the oven, “you will experience the magic for yourself.” Mickey follows every one of his movements with his tongue lolling, drooling on the floor.

“So what happened to the rapid-cooking grill?” She asks.

“Mac got bored when he was stuck at home after the nerve gas thing, and he took it all apart. He hasn’t made it stop spitting fireballs yet.” _Of course._ Riley grins. _A bored Mac is dangerous._

“Might not want to mention that little fact too loudly.” She glances out the doors onto the deck, where Diane is sitting on the other side of the fire pit. Riley’s actually a little shocked that she agreed to come to the “tile company” Christmas party. _She knew Jack was going to be here._ Riley hopes that means things are thawing between them. And from the looks of things out there, she’s right.

Diane is smiling, her elf hat earrings (fuzzy monstrosities Riley bought for her as a thirteen-year-old) bobbing as she laughs. Jack’s waving his mug around for emphasis, Riley has no idea what story he’s telling, but it must be a doozy.

“Hey Ri!” he calls. “You’re missing the best part!” She chuckles and grabs her own mug, walking out to the fire and claiming the empty spot next to Cage.

“He’s not killing you with his terrible puns, is he?” Riley asks.

“They’re as bad as I remember,” Diane chuckles, “But I’ve actually kind of missed them.

“Just getting you two in the same room is cause for a celebration.” Riley raises her mug. “To family.”

Her former roommate clinks her own glass in a salute. Riley’s glad to see Sam here and smiling. She’s been distant the last few weeks, and Riley knows about the ticket to Sydney. _But clearly she never did talk to Linsey._ But now she looks happy.

“Seriously, you’re _weird,_ ” Jack is saying. “We’re all decorating cookies, and this crazy woman is over in the corner buttering slices of bread and shaking the sprinkles onto that, and she claims that’s what she’s bringing to the Christmas party.”

“It’s called fairy bread,” Sam chuckles. “And there’s a whole plate in my car, whenever we’re ready to break out the food.”

“Bozer insists we have to have the pastrami first,” Riley says.

“No, man, life is short, it’s always dessert first!” Jack insists. “Break out the elf bread!”

“It’s fairy bread, Jack. Elf bread is from Lord of the Rings, and technically it’s called Lembas,” Mac cuts in. Diane laughs.   
“Yeah, yeah, elf, fairy, Santa Claus, all those imaginary guys are the same to me.”

“Actually, Santa Claus could theoretically be real,” Mac says.

“You're not a grown man who believes in Santa, are you?” Jack asks, laughing.

“I'm a grown man who cannot rule out the existence of Santa. Two different things. 'Cause if you think about it the rotation of the Earth, different time zones, and the latest research into Einstein-Rosen bridges…” Riley smiles, watching his face light up. She’s not going to argue with him. _Let him keep the tiny bit of magic left in his life. Something good to still believe in._ God knows they need all the hope they can find. It seems like Jack’s thinking the same thing, because he’s stopped arguing and is listening to Mac with a silly smile on his face.

“Seriously, you thought of all this?” Diane’s leaning in, clearly impressed with this supposed construction contractor’s knowledge of astrophysics.

Mac nods. “I was bored and Bozer yelled at me for taking apart the grill, so I had to pass the time somehow.”

“So you decided to prove the existence of Santa Claus. I like it,” Sam says. “You know, when I was a child, I firmly believed the fairies were real. I thought I was a changeling child, because when I was little I was sort of sickly and everyone said I was delicate.”

“And now?” Riley asks.

“Every once in a while things happen you can’t explain,” Cage says. “I like to keep an open mind.” She takes another drink of her egg nog. “This is really good, guys.”

“That’s all Bozer,” Mac says. “He didn’t let me touch any of the food.”

“Probably a good plan. No one needs food poisoning,” Jack laughs. Mac raises an eyebrow. “Come on, dude, be honest, your cooking sucks.”

Riley hears the door open, and then Matty and Patty walk out onto the deck. She frowns. _Patty said she wouldn’t be able to make it because of that guerilla crisis in Angola, and the bombings._ And she doesn’t look relieved in the slightest, so clearly it’s not resolved. _Is she going to send us in?_

“Hey, there they are,” Jack says, then picks up on the somber mood. “What's wrong, boss ladies?”

“I'm sorry, guys, but Christmas is on hold.” Matty’s voice is a tiny bit shaky.

“What? Why?” Bozer asks, coming out of the kitchen in his apron.

“Because we have a problem.” Riley sees Diane shoot her a confused glance. _She’s got to be wondering what could possibly be this big an emergency for tile sales at Christmas._ But she’s scared now. Clearly it’s bad enough that Matty and Patty either haven’t noticed the civilian here or don’t care that she’s about to hear everything.

“What kind of problem?” Mac asks.  

Matty looks at him with sad eyes. “Two days ago a cartel lieutenant named Joachin Morelas was found dead in his garage. His car had exploded, and the fragments of the bomb found at the sight match almost identically to a build that the LAPD has on file for the vigilante known as the “Phoenix”.” Riley drops her mug. The ceramic shattering against the wood sounds too loud, and Mickey starts barking, agitated and quivering, tail thrashing. “The LAPD has a warrant for your arrest, Mac. They're on their way here now.”

“What?” Diane’s voice rises. “I don’t understand, why is he…”

Mac bites his lip and stares into the fire. “Because I _was_ the Phoenix.”

“Mom, listen, it’s not what you think…” Riley feels like the world is falling apart. _Last year Bozer, this year Mom._

“I didn’t do it,” Mac gasps, he’s so pale he looks like the ash scattered around the fire. “I didn’t do it.” Riley feels like the whole world is spinning. She wants to try and reassure Diane because it looks like she’s going to go ballistic in the next thirty seconds, but Mac is going to have a _literal panic attack_ and she doesn’t know what to do about any of this.

But then Jack is up and moving and hurrying toward Mac, and Riley turns back to Diane. “Mom, I’ll explain later, I promise, but…”

“This is why you wouldn’t tell me about him? You were working with a criminal? Riley, he…”

“Mom, he didn’t do it! I know, because I was _with him_!” She’s aware she’s almost screaming, that this isn’t helping, but she’s in shock and scared and she doesn’t know what to do.

“But he said…”

“Years ago! He was the Phoenix years ago! Not now! Someone else…”

“Everyone, stop!” Patty’s voice cuts the frantic chatter like a knife. “This isn’t helping anyone, and the police are on their way _now._ ”

“So how do we get Mac out of this?” Jack shouts. “They can’t do this, he didn’t do anything!” He’s still holding onto Mac, and he looks so _small_ in Jack’s grasp.

“I know. And we’re going to fix it,” Matty says. “But right now, this is happening.”

“We were in Chicago!” Jack shouts. “I can tell them that…”

“No, Jack, you can’t.” Matty’s voice is steel. “You can’t say one thing about Chicago.”

Mac is shaking, he looks about three seconds from throwing up, passing out, or both. “Don't-don't-don't worry, Mac, we'll get you out of this. You hear me? I promise.” Jack holds him a little tighter. Then Riley hears tires on gravel.

“They’re here.” Mac stumbles to his feet, heading into the house toward the door, and the rest of them follow. Diane is still sputtering, almost incoherently now, but Riley can’t do anything about that. Mac is shaking so badly…

And then the door smashes down with a massive cracking thud, and Riley gasps as a full SWAT breaching team pours in. Two of them start clearing the whole room, and Diane screams. Mickey is barking, lunging at the grip Bozer has on his collar. But Riley only has eyes for what’s happening to Mac. Two of the men grab him, flinging him to the ground and twisting his arms behind him. He’s gasping, starting to cry. And all she can hear is her own voice, screaming, over and over, “Stop!”

* * *

Mac’s just trying to breathe. _I didn’t kill anyone. I wasn’t even in LA._ But he was in Chicago for an op, so they can’t tell the police that. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do now. Jack’s holding onto him, telling him they’re going to fix this, he’s going to be okay, but it’s not okay, because if he doesn’t tell them the truth he’ll go to prison for murder, and if he does tell them the truth he’ll go to prison for operating illegally on domestic soil.

He’s panicking, shaking, he’s going to pass out. All the voices around him are a blur. Diane and Riley are arguing, Jack is yelling at someone, he doesn’t even know what’s happening. All he knows is he didn’t kill that man but he might as well have, because the police are never going to believe him. Not after everything else.

“We’ll get you out of this, I promise.” Jack’s voice cuts through the swirling fear and panic, grounding him a little. _But how?_ Mac doesn’t see a way to clear him that doesn’t expose the agency. _I can’t ask them to do that, they can’t send the whole Phoenix under for one agent._ Jack is holding onto him, and Mac wishes time would just stop, right now, because right now it’s okay, he’s okay, but it’s not going to be. _I don’t want to go back to prison. I can’t. I can’t I can’t I can’t._ He wants to cry because he feels like he’s had more than his share of disasters right now, and it’s not fair, and he wants it to all go away. “We’re gonna fix it Mac, I swear.”

And then Riley speaks up. “They’re here.”

He’s not going to make this harder. He doesn’t need to piss them off. He struggles to his feet, but losing contact with Jack makes him start shaking again. _No, no, you can’t look weak._ That’s bad, that’s dangerous. He can’t let them see he’s scared. He takes a deep breath, he’ll be okay, two more steps till he opens the door,  he can calm down…

And then there’s a shattering thud and he doesn’t know what’s happening anymore because someone is grabbing him and throwing him on the ground, and then his training kicks in and he starts to fight back, he has to get them off, he has to get away, he can hear himself screaming for Jack because Jack always helps him, Jack always saves him, but someone hits him, hard, and he flinches, and it’s long enough to remember that he’s being arrested. This isn’t an op, those aren’t mercs or terrorists grabbing him. It’s the police. He can’t fight, he’ll be in even more trouble.

There’s two people on top of him now and he can’t breathe, and he wants them off, off, _please get off me_ because it’s scary and what if they hurt him? What if they think he’s dangerous? He’s not, he’s just scared, he didn’t mean to start fighting.

He feels something warm on his cheeks and realizes he’s crying. Somewhere in the background, someone is screaming, Mickey is barking, and he can hear Jack cursing and shouting. _Don’t make it worse, Jack, please._ Even though all he wants is for Jack to come and drag those men off him and make it okay.

“Suspect is secured,” One of the men says, and Mac is being dragged to his feet. He stumbles, and only the iron grip on his arms stops him from face-planting into the floor.

Jack is still yelling, something about not needing to do that, that Mac isn’t dangerous, that this is a mistake. But Mac knows no one will listen to him. He’s a criminal, and that’s all they’re going to care about now. When they pull him out the door, he’s already gone numb. It’s the only way to survive what happens next.

* * *

APRIL 2014

LOS ANGELES

 _Mac aches all over._ I was way too close to that explosion. _He’s pretty sure he has some decent first degree burns on his back; it hurt when he rolled over in his sleep._ _At least nothing is going to be visible._

 _He winces as he shrugs into his green coveralls for Weathers’s._ Man, going under anything on the creeper is gonna hurt today.

 _He pulls his hair back off his face, checking for any bruises, then notices the back of his neck is red and the ends of the ponytail are singed. He pulls out his knife, clips off whatever is visibly burnt, and lets the rest of it hang loose, forgoing the hair tie._ Long hair is useful for hiding any of the damage. _He’s covered up cuts on his face and forehead, black eyes, and all manner of bruises with it._ _The guys at the garage might tease him about risking getting it caught in one of the engines, but it’s better than having them ask about the injuries._

_He hurries downstairs. As usual, Mama Bozer’s got the TV running for background noise, she can’t sleep without it. He’s more or less tuned it out at this point, it’s been a constant since Jerry died. He reaches into the cupboard, feeling around for something he can take with him to eat on the way. Bozer and Deja are sitting on the couch. They already have their food, bowls of cereal each and an orange for Bozer, a banana for Deja. He wishes he could join them, but morning shift means he’s got to hurry._

_He’s just stuffing a granola bar in his pocket when he hears a metallic clatter from the living room. Bozer’s dropped his spoon, but he’s making no move to pick it up._

_“Mac…” Bozer’s staring at the TV. There’s footage of yesterday at the La Ola warehouse, firemen sifting through the rubble._ He knows. He knows I was lying about where I was when I said they needed me at Weathers’s. _He’s going to have to fess up, and Bozer’s going to be mad. But they’ll deal with it, they always have. And then he sees the tagline at the bottom of the screen._

**Warehouse Fire Claims One Life**

God, no. No, no, no. _He was so sure he checked the whole building for anyone inside._

_The reporter is chattering away, blissfully unaware that she’s driving a knife into his heart. “The body of George Ramsay, the maintenance contractor, was found in the rubble this morning. The police are investigating this incident, based on as yet unrevealed evidence. LAPD Detective Daniel Greer has declined to give a statement on the case, however, this reporter is working with the LAPD press unit to find out if there are any suspects. We’ll be keeping an eye on this investigation and…”_

_Mac doesn’t hear anything more. It feels like he’s unable to move or breathe. Like everything in the room is moving away from him, faster and faster._ No. _He can’t believe this is happening. It’s not like no one’s died before, because of what he’s done. But…_ Oh God, he was just a civilian. He had a family. _Mac can’t tear his eyes away from the picture of the man with his wife and two daughters on the screen_ . _The others who died were part of the cartels. Not that Mac feels any better about that, but this was their war. They chose it. This man…_

 _He stumbles backward, catching himself on the doorframe. He did this. It’s his fault. He killed an innocent man. The one thing he never wanted to do_ . Everything I do, I do to protect people like him. And now… _He flinches when he hears sirens whooping down the street. He doesn’t know if it’s just another domestic disturbance call, just another neighborhood mess, or…_

_Before he has time to even think of what to do, there’s a pounding at the door. Mama Bozer appears from the bathroom, her hair still tied up from the night, her slippers flapping unbearably loudly against the tile. “Who is it at this hour of the morning?” she says. “It can’t be the rent man. We just paid him…”_

_Mac already knows, he can see the lights outside. He stumbles to the door, ignoring the chatter behind him. They already know, and they’re coming for him. And they should._

_Mac opens the door. “Angus MacGyver?” The stocky, grey-haired man in front asks. Mac can’t speak, he just nods. “You’re under arrest for the murder of George Ramsay.”_

_Mac hears Mama Bozer gasping, Deja screaming that it must be a mistake, that Mac wouldn’t kill anyone. But Bozer is silent._ I promised him I was done. And now…

_Mac can’t look at any of them, especially not at Bozer. The Miranda rights are blurring into a garbled buzz in his head, and he flinches when one of the officers yanks his hands behind him and snaps him into handcuffs._

_He’s dragged down the sidewalk and shoved unceremoniously into the back of a police car, the officer’s hands rough as they force his head down and push him inside. He looks back just once, because he can’t help it, and he sees the Bozers huddled on the front step, watching the car pull away. He feels numb and cold and lost._ This is what I deserve. _He killed an innocent man. He swallows hard and sees a single tear run down the end of his nose and splash onto the front of his shirt._ I failed.

* * *

“What the _hell_ was that?” Jack yells. “Why did they do that? He would have gone peacefully!” He can’t get Mac’s desperate cries out of his head. _He was screaming for me to help him. And I couldn’t._ Mac was scared, he needed Jack to help him, and that didn’t happen. _I couldn’t do anything then. But I can figure out how to get him out._ Because he’ll be damned if he lets anything happen to his kid.

Matty looks at him, and if he’s not mistaken there are tears in her eyes. “Based on the prior terrorism conviction, I’m sure they were treating him as a hostile suspect.” Jack bites his lip, hands balled into fists. He can’t say he wouldn’t look at a sheet like Mac’s, during a Phoenix op, and do just what those men did. _It looks bad for him. Really bad._ Mac was a vigilante, and cops tend not to want to get in a tangle with people like that, people they have to assume have no respect for the law.

Riley’s taken Diane over into a bedroom, probably trying to sit down with her and explain it all. Jack doesn’t envy her that one. Bozer’s holding Mickey, who’s whining and scrabbling at the floor and trying to get to the door. _He wants Mac. I do too, pup, I do too._ He scrubs his hands over his face, it feels like the world is ending.

They have to fix this somehow. Because he’s not going to let Mac go back to prison. He looks from Matty to Patty, and he means this as respectfully as possible, but he’s not going to lie to them. “You’d better figure out some way to get our boy out of there, or God help me I’m gonna break him out myself.”

He can already see that they know better than to argue with him. There’s a muscle twitching in Patty’s jaw. She, at least, remembers Bishop. What kind of hell Mac went through. _She knows going inside again would kill him._

“If you do, you both are going to spend the rest of your life on the run,” Matty says. “Is that what you want?”

“Better that than Mac spending the rest of his life in prison.” Jack isn’t afraid to do what has to be done. He’s not going to let Mac be thrown back to those monsters, not while there’s still breath in him.

“I assure you, calls will be made.” Matty’s already pulling out her phone. “But I think we ought to  move this to the War Room.” Jack nods. They’ll have more resources there, more potential ways to come up with a solution. At least this time, Mac won’t plead guilty. _But what if that only makes it worse?_

* * *

Riley takes a deep, shaky breath. She doesn’t want to do this right now, but she has to, because Diane is absolutely freaking out. _I mean, having a full tactical SWAT team pointing their guns in your face is a pretty good excuse to do that._

“I don’t understand,” Diane is repeating. “He was a vigilante, but he’s not now, but they arrested him?”

Riley nods. “He was for almost four years. Bozer’s little brother was killed in a cartel turf war, and Mac wanted to do something about it. So he started trying to stop the cartels. But he never wanted to kill.” She sighs. Mom, up in Portland, probably didn’t hear too much about the case, but she might have heard the highlights. _That terrorism conviction was a huge news story._

“So your ‘Mac’ is Angus MacGyver?” Diane says, and Riley can tell she’s starting to slot the pieces together. “But I thought…”

“He was doing life for terrorism?” Riley smiles sadly. “He got cleared. The man they said he killed was a cartel hit, and the men who killed him took advantage of the building blowing up to hide the body in the rubble. They got away with it, and Mac took the fall. He thought it really was his fault, but someone pulled his case out of the box and took it to a bomb expert, and they were able to clear him.”

“Sounds like someone went to a lot of trouble.”

Riley nods, smiling again. “I guess they didn’t want to see him spend the rest of his life paying for something he never did.” She glances out toward the rest of the house, she can hear Jack talking. “And you know Jack, he likes hiring misunderstood criminal types. Otherwise I’d be lying on my resume right now.”

Diane chuckles weakly. “What was all that about Chicago? If you can prove Mac is innocent, why not tell the police?”

 _And now the other shoe drops._ Diane’s been surprisingly understanding about Mac’s situation, probably the proof of his innocence helped a lot. _I would not have wanted to do this a year ago._ But there’s still the little matter of the agency. Riley’s not sure how to explain.

As it turns out, she doesn’t have to, at least not right now. “Ri?” Jack’s standing in the door. “We’re goin’ to the office. Could use your help.” Riley nods, standing up.

“Mom, it’s probably best if you just go home. I’ll tell you if anything changes.” Diane looks unsatisfied, but she nods. Clearly, Riley’s finally mastered the ‘don’t argue with me’ voice.

Riley follows Jack out, cringing at the sight of the broken door. She knows the sight of Mac being thrown to the floor, cuffed, crying for Jack, for someone to help him, is going to haunt her. _He didn’t even do anything, and they treated him like he was a monster._ She can’t imagine how terrible Mac must feel right now.

“We have to be able to do something.” She knows there’s already been damage done; she saw the terror in Mac’s eyes when those men pinned him to the floor. _Hasn’t he suffered enough?_ She knows he’s been blaming himself for what happened on that research ship. Having to deal with this fear on top of it... _they’re going to shatter him._ And that's if they _don't_ send him back to prison. 

“We will.” Jack’s voice is cold, hard, Delta-sharp. “And Ri? If we don’t find a way to clear him, legally, you still own the LAPD’s computer network, right?” She nods. She’s kept a finger in the pie since that hack when they were trying to find Murdoc.

She knows what Jack means. And yes, she could crash systems long enough for them to go in and break Mac out. She hopes it doesn’t come to that, but if it does, she’ll be behind it one hundred percent. _I won't watch something like Bishop happen again while I stand by and do nothing._

Patty catches her arm. “Since you do, let’s use it. Get his case file. We need to know everything we can about what evidence they have. It might be the only way to clear his name.” Riley nods, slides into the passenger seat of the GTO, and starts typing.

* * *

Mac shivers. He’s been here before. Well, maybe not LAPD interrogation room 3B, but one just like it. And last time, it didn’t end well for him. He knows this is different, this time he knows he didn’t do anything wrong. He wasn’t responsible for anything, let alone the death that they’re trying to pin on him. He’s not doing the vigilante thing anymore.

It’s cold, and the metal cuffs holding him to the table feel like ice. It’s too much like all his dreams of Murdoc. He can still feel the pressure on his back and legs from the SWAT guys that were holding him down, and worse than the bruises all over from being slammed to the floor is the feeling of being violated, overpowered, exposed.

He can feel the dried tracks of tears crusting on his face, and he feels ashamed. _I didn’t do anything wrong. There’s nothing for me to be afraid of...right?_ He used to trust the justice system to do its job. But that was before no one paid for Jerry Bozer’s death. Before he was sent to prison for something he didn’t do. _Some of that was on me. I thought it was my fault, I really did._ But he’s so scared now, scared that someone will fail, that something will go wrong. _I already have my past against me. Everything I say is going to be twice as criticized, because no matter what, I was still a vigilante._

The door slams open and he flinches involuntarily. Two people walk in, and he recognizes Detective Greer. He sighs, leaning forward on the table. _He handled my case the first time. He’s always going to see the vigilante I was._ He doesn’t stand a chance.

Greer is a little greyer, has a few more lines in his face than Mac remembers. He sits down slowly, pushing a manila file across the table, toward Mac.

“You know, I was really hoping you were going to stay out of our hair this time, Mr. MacGyver.” Greer looks sad and maybe even a little sympathetic. “You had the chance to start over, why didn’t you? You like spending the rest of your life in those cuffs?”

“I didn’t do it,” Mac says desperately.

“No guilty plea right off the bat this time?” Greer asks.

“I didn’t kill that man,” Mac says. This can’t be happening. But he knows arguing is going to be fruitless.

“Everything we have here says differently.” Greer opens his file, and Mac cringes at the images of burnt metal, smoke-stained glass, and charred flesh. “The IED that did this was a nearly perfect match to several devices LAPD retrieved from cartel warehouses and stockpiles.” He pulls out some older photos. “Explosions that were later connected to a vigilante called the Phoenix.”

“I didn’t build this one.” Mac takes the picture, cringing at the rattle of cuffs on the table as he turns it around. “You know this isn’t how I worked. I never actively tried to kill anyone. You have my file right here, you can see that a car bomb isn’t something I would do.”

“I can tell it isn’t what you did three years ago. But you did two years hard time, spent most of it in solitary for starting fights with fellow prisoners. That looks like a lot of anger to me. I think you changed.”

“I did. But not the way you think.” Mac tries to meet Greer’s eyes with as much confidence as he can. “I don’t do that anymore.”

“No, you apparently work for a think tank,” Greer’s partner says. She reminds Mac a little of Thornton. “A think tank that recruited you directly from prison and has some serious issues in its documentation.” Now Mac can see her ID, Detective Michaela Forster. “An organization that changed names shortly after recruiting _you_.”

“You can talk to my parole officer,” Mac says desperately. “Penny Parker. She can vouch for my character…”

“Yes, while you were on a monitor. How long have you been off that?” Forster raises an eyebrow. “All of these vigilante incidents have happened within the last three months. Coincidentally, when you were no longer reporting your whereabouts.”

“It wasn’t me.” Mac wants to tell them about Chicago, to show them the proof that he wasn’t to blame for this. But he can’t. And as Forster leans in, her eyes hard, he knows they’ll never believe him without it.

* * *

APRIL 2014

LAPD HEADQUARTERS

_“I said I did it. What more do you want?”_

_“You’re responsible for a lot more than the death of a civilian. We know who you are, Mr. MacGyver. And we’ve got a whole case file on the “Phoenix”.”  Detective Greer spreads a file on the table. Snapshots of torched drug-running cars, warehouses of melted weapons, drug dealers tied up with duct tape, their duffel bags of contraband stacked next to them._

_The other detective, Turner, leans across the table. “That warehouse explosion had your signature all over it. There’s enough forensic evidence to tie you to at least three of these other  cases, and I’m sure if we do some more digging, we can connect you to every single one.”_

_“I want my phone call now.” He knows he sounds desperate, he_ is _desperate._ _He just wants to tell Bozer he’s sorry. He has no one else to call. No one can help him now._

_“Phone call?” Greer laughs. Mac flinches, this sounds bad. Really, really bad. “You don’t get a phone call.”_

_“What do you mean I don't get a phone call?”_

_“You would, if we were just charging you with murder.” Turner’s voice carries a dangerous anger. “A bomb you built blew up on U.S. soil, ending an innocent life and destroying a building._ _This isn't just about murder anymore. We're charging you with domestic terrorism.”_

_Mac freezes._

_“I...I was trying to protect people. Those guns would have been used to shoot innocent civilians, maybe even police officers. Like you.” He’s desperate. He knows he killed a man, but terrorism? What are they going to do to him if he’s convicted of that? Will they ship him off to one of those military prisons that doesn’t technically exist? Will they interrogate him because they won’t believe he’s not part of some extremist group? “I was trying to stop terrorists. I’m not one of them!”_

_“What you are, Mr. MacGyver, is a jigsaw puzzle. The picture on the box looks good, but lift the lid and all you'll find inside are a bunch of broken pieces.” Mac shivers. “Your mom died when you were five. Dad left when you were ten. And then your best friend’s brother was gunned down in a cartel shooting, which is what I assume brought on this whole one-man war against the LA cartel scene.” Greer spreads out a Mission City police file. “And of course there’s that little matter of you burning down your high school football stadium. Looks like arson’s always been a personal favorite, huh?”_

_“That was an accident,” Mac says shakily._

_“Or a clue to who you would ultimately become. In my experience, highly intelligent children with abandonment issues, a history of arson and an abnormal obsession with explosives don't usually wind up doctors and lawyers. You've spent your whole life looking for somewhere to put all that anger. It's just too bad we didn't catch you before all that rage cost an innocent man his life.”_

_“I’m not that kind of vigilante,” Mac protests. “I was trying to save people.”_

_“It doesn’t matter what you were_ trying _to do. It matters that you killed someone.”_

* * *

WAR ROOM

THEY’VE PLANNED HUNDREDS OF RESCUE MISSIONS HERE

“There’s no way he could have done it, Matty, and you know it! We were in Chicago that weekend. Stopping that cartel weapons sale. To hell with protocol, we have to get him out of there, and we can prove he’s not a murderer!” Jack’s willing to burn the agency to the ground if that’s what it takes to get Mac out. They’ve started over twice already. It’s not impossible.

Matty sighs. “You know that and I know that, Jack. But the second we use that to defend him, we just open another can of worms. Illegally operating on U.S. soil will get Mac an even worse sentence than what he’s facing now.”

Jack wants to scream and tear out what little hair he has left. _Either way, he loses._ He doesn’t know how this is happening. He sits down next to Bozer. The poor kid looks like he’s in shock. _I can’t imagine what it’s like for him to have to watch this happen again._ Because the last two times Mac was arrested, even if one was just a fake, ended so, so badly. He puts a hand on Bozer’s shoulder and squeezes it gently, feeling the tension running through him. _We have to fix this._

“You know this is retaliation. They can’t try him for the same crime, so the second something comes up they can pin on him…”

“The police aren’t the enemy here, Jack.” Cage insists, but he doesn’t want to hear it.

“I’m not talking about the cops on the street, Sam. The people who are gonna throw Mac in a cell and lose the key are the brass over there. They don’t want to admit they convicted an innocent man because they were so determined to make themselves look good for taking down a terrorist. When we got Mac’s conviction overturned, we pissed them off, showed how badly they jumped the gun. That bust _made_ the careers of half the brass in the LAPD, and they’re gonna use this as proof he must have been guilty and just gotten away with it.” _Convicting a homegrown terrorist looked good on the resume. Throwing an innocent man in a supermax for two years doesn’t really have the same crowd appeal._

Cage nods. “Which means we need airtight proof that Mac couldn’t have been the killer.”

“Proof that doesn’t put him in violation of the Espionage Act,” Patty reminds them. “If one mention of the Phoenix’s real purpose is part of our case, Mac could spend the rest of his life in a black site.” Jack thinks that’s arguably better than the last prison the kid was in. _At least he’d be alone._

“We can’t just leave him there.” Jack knows he’s beating a dead horse, that they all know how far he’s willing to go to get Mac back, but it’s all he _can_ say. “And if someone doesn’t tell me something actionable, right _now_ , I am getting geared up and getting my kid out of there, no matter what happens.” Mac’s been abandoned too many times. Jack won’t do that to him now.

“Guys, I have something.” Riley looks up from her computer screen, eyes hopeful. “Whoever put the bomb under Morelas’s car cut themselves on some exposed metal underneath. There’s a blood residue sample, but it’s fire-damaged and too degraded for DNA analysis…”

“Not if you know a DNA reconstruction expert,” Jack says. “Matty, get me Frankie Mallory on the phone. Now.”

* * *

Dan Greer leans back in the chair and sighs. His phone’s buzzing in his pocket. Probably his ex wondering if he’s still planning on taking the kids to the parade tomorrow, she’s been bugging him about that since last Tuesday.

 _I want to. But not if we can’t get this case wrapped up._ And unlike last time, MacGyver isn’t cooperating.

The kid never struck Dan as the killer type. And he honestly always believed the warehouse death was more or less an accident. Maybe the kid panicked, got caught inside and set off the bomb prematurely. It certainly hadn’t matched his normal pattern.

But the fact had remained; Angus MacGyver was a vigilante, dangerous and unpredictable. Operating outside the law. He’s fond of arson and explosions, and it got someone killed. That wasn’t going to be allowed to happen again.

When he found out MacGyver was getting an appeal, he was surprised, but the kid walked. Getting a conviction overturned is never a great feeling. But it had sounded like Angus was getting the chance to turn his life around and taking it. _He was a good kid, trying to make a difference._ He just went about it the wrong way.

But now...there’s a lot of pain in the eyes of the man across the table from him. _He spent two years in a supermax, and for a guy like him that was hell._ He kept tabs on the kid for a while, heard about him getting thrown in solitary. He even went so far as to check in with one of his inside informants, heard that MacGyver ended up being more or less owned by the La Ola cartel in CCI. _Trauma like that would have changed him._ People react to that in different ways. Some of them retreat into themselves, become shells of the people they were. Others lash out. And from the reports of what got MacGyver put in solitary, he’s the latter.

“Mr. MacGyver, this will be easier if you come clean with us now.” The FBI is on its way in, they want to deal with this case themselves. _They don’t want to let MacGyver slip through the system a second time._ LAPD’s conviction was overturned, they aren’t going to let that happen again.

“I told you, I didn’t do this.”

Greer pulls out Morelas’s file and spreads it on the table as well. The kid wants to do this the hard way, they’ll do it the hard way. “You know that a murder is more probable when the killer knew the victim?” MacGyver nods, frowning. “Do you remember him now?” He sees Angus flinch visibly when he sees the photo of the man with a full sleeve of tattoos and a scarred cheek. The body was so badly burned it barely bore a resemblance to this photo. “He went by “El Lobo” in Cali Correctional.”

Angus swallows. “Yes. I knew him.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you remember him.” Dan says. “Hard to forget someone like that, I’m sure, especially when their cartel owns you. And we have a motive now, too.”

“Just because he...because he…” MacGyver chokes, staring down at the table.

“You wanted revenge. You just couldn’t put prison behind you, could you?”

Angus’s breaths are shaky, broken. His eyes are swimming with tears. “What he did to me...I...they…” his voice cuts off, wavering and shattered. “But I swear, I didn’t kill him.”

“You understand how a court will see this?” Greer asks. “It’s not uncommon for prisoners who’ve suffered from rape to kill their abusers. It just normally happens while they’re both still inside.” MacGyver is shaking now. _There’s a lot of hurt there._ And right now it’s manifesting as shame and fear, but that could easily twist itself into rage. He looks up from the table and his eyes are shimmering, full of tears and pain. “Yes, I knew Morelas in CCI. Yes, his cartel treated me as their property. But I. Didn’t. Kill. Him.”

“Tell it to a judge,” Dan says, standing up. “Because we’ve got evidence, connection, and motive. More than enough to charge you with murder in the first degree.”

* * *

NOVEMBER 2014

CALIFORNIA CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION

_Mac leans against the dusty concrete wall, letting the weak sun warm him as much as it can. He’s always cold, here. Concrete and steel bars aren’t exactly cozy, and his thin jumpsuit feels almost useless. Against the cold and against the hungry eyes he tries not to think too much about._

_He keeps to himself in the corner of the yard. He’s learned the hard way to keep his head down and stay away from anyone else. True, there’s a tentative protection from La Ola, they have a vested interest in keeping him alive, for now, but he still has to pay for it. And the more times they have to get him out of trouble, stop some other cartel from shanking the “Phoenix” who personally is responsible for some of them being here, they want more. He’s still sore from the last fight, and his legs hurt more than the bruises he got from that El Diablos lieutenant's fists._

_He wants to say no, he feels dirty and humiliated for letting them do this in exchange for fighting his battles for him. But he knows if he refuses, they have as much reason to hate him as any other cartel, and if he’s no longer cooperative, they’ll do whatever they want and then kill him. He shivers._ How did I end up like this? _It’s so much worse than he could ever have imagined._ But after what I did, maybe it’s all I deserve. _It seems almost impossible that last year he was a free man. It feels like he’s always been here, like this life is all he’s ever known. It’s certainly all he has to look forward to._

 _“Hey,_ puta.” _Mac flinches at the voice, turning to see the tattooed, scarred man who’s walking up to him. Now that Connors got transferred, this guy, the one they call “Lobo”, is the highest ranking La Ola member in CCI. He’s the one who guys go to when they want to score a hit of something from outside, or want a problem taken care of._

_He’s also the one who’s been making Mac’s life a living hell for the past few weeks. Since it’s his cartel protecting Mac, he’s insisting on getting his fair share of the payment for it, and if he thought Connors was sadistic, Lobo is a hundred times worse. But Mac’s already given him what he wanted for the last time his people stepped in. Is he going to ask for more?_

_“You look bored,” Lobo says, running a hand up Mac’s leg. He shudders. “How’d you like something to keep you busy?” Mac knows it’s not a request. He takes a deep breath and then follows the man over to the other side of the yard, shivering as he steps into the shadow of walls that block out the sun._

_The corner they’re headed for is the one that’s easiest to avoid the guards’ view in, because of all the exercise equipment nearby. The cartels like to use it to make illegal deals. But it’s got more uses than that, and Mac shivers at the thought that Lobo might humiliate him like that._ Even if the guards can’t always see what’s happening, the other prisoners can. _It’s risky, but he’s already learned that that’s exactly what Lobo likes._ He gets a sick pleasure from subjecting me to as much degradation as he possibly can. And he’s certainly never minded an audience.

_It’s almost a relief that when they get there, Lobo starts talking to the two other cartel members standing there. “Sold the last today,” one of them says quietly._

_Mac learned fast that just because these guys are behind bars doesn’t mean the dealing ends. They’re still passing drugs, homemade weapons, and other contraband out to anyone willing to trade for it. But they still have to have suppliers. And the last guard who was sneaking drugs in got caught._

_The other man speaks up. “Fernandes is in my block. He said he’ll slip us some on his next work rotation; he knows about the roadside drops.” Another thing Mac learned was that the La Ola guys who go out on work details have a habit of using dead drops, especially the guys working road cleanup crews. It’s easy for the cartel members on the outside to hide a bag of drugs in random highway trash and mark it with something innocuous. “He can get it past the checks at the gate. But he wants payment.”_

_“Tell him Connors’s little bitch is all his if he can get it inside.” Lobo pulls Mac forward. “I think he’ll agree to that.”_

_Mac can’t hold back the full-body shiver._ Did I really just hear them trade me away for a smuggled bag of cocaine?

_Every time he thinks it can’t possibly get worse, it does. It was bad enough to be used, humiliated, treated like an object. It was worse to be told his body was the price for his protection. But now he’s being used as a bargaining chip. Payment._

_Is this all he’s worth to them? A couple cigarettes? A guard looking the other way? He wants to cry, but he won’t give them the satisfaction of humiliating him even more. Not that he has any pride left._ How can you? You’re their personal whore, you’re selling yourself to them for protection and they’re selling you out for their own profit. _He feels absolutely wretched. How did everything go so wrong?_

* * *

LAPD HEADQUARTERS

MAC MIGHT AS WELL GET USED TO THIS AGAIN

When the door closes, and he’s alone, Mac finally cries. Everything is worse now. He thought that name sounded familiar, but he was panicking too much to really remember. But that picture...he could never forget that face.

 _Morelas was a monster._ Sadistic, getting his pleasure not just from the physical actions, but from terrifying and humiliating his victims. It sounds like Greer knows exactly what happened. _Probably had someone he knew in there, someone who told him what was going on._

He knows how bad this looks. _He’s right. Victims are known to turn on their rapists, to become violent._ His multiple fights to get himself into solitary aren’t helping his case. _To an outsider, it looks like I got angry. Like I wanted to let that out on someone._

To Greer, he’s a broken, dangerous man who’s known for going after his own brand of justice, breaking the law to do it. It’s not a huge step from his vigilante activities to killing, and no one here knows that it’s a line he’s not willing to cross. He already knows he fits the profile of a killer. And his time in prison only made it more believable that he’d become bitter and violent.

He won’t plead guilty, because he’s _not,_ but this is going to go to court. And he knows that everything Greer had in that file, everything he threw at Mac in here in this room, is going to be spread out in front of everyone, in that courtroom.

 _It’s motive._ And the prosecution is going to shred him with it. _I won’t be able to keep it together, not in front of a courtroom of people._ Everyone will see that they broke him, they’ll believe it was enough to push him over the edge, to make him a killer. He knows how public the last trial was. This one will be the same. Maybe getting his conviction overturned wasn’t headlines, but being charged with murder again will be. And everyone, _everyone,_ is going to hear why the court thinks he’s guilty. It’ll be like CCI all over again...but will it really matter? Because he’ll just go back to prison. Where everyone knows anyway. _If I go back, I’m going to die._ He knows that for certain. Maybe in a month, maybe a year...but sooner or later he’s going to lose the will to fight back. He was already so close before Jack and Riley came for him.

He knows Jack would be upset. _You can’t think like that, hoss. There’s always another way, remember?_ But he has to think through the contingencies. Because if they can’t find a way to prove he’s innocent, without bringing in his real job, he’s going back to prison. No jury in the world will let him walk, not with all of this stacked up against him.

He can hear arguing out in the hallway. It doesn’t really matter, though. The door swings open again, and he takes a deep breath. He won’t let them make him cry. He has to hang onto whatever shreds of dignity he has left, and there isn’t much. _They know about all of it. Everything they did to me in prison._ He knows how they see him now. And they’re not wrong.

“Mac?” That voice is familiar. Very familiar. “Geeze, kid, you look awful.”

“Jack?”

* * *

LAPD HEADQUARTERS

JACK’S BREAKING OUT THE ROGER PRESTON ROUTINE AGAIN

Jack takes a deep breath, pressing the paperclip in his hand against the handle of the briefcase. Things are looking like he won’t have to break Mac out, but he’s not coming unprepared. “Hey Ri, my tie straight?”

“Yes.” She stands up, all business in her pencil skirt, red blouse, and blazer. Taking a page out of Patty’s style book. It suits her, or at least this role. _His_ Riley is the one who sprawls on the War Room couch in ripped skinny jeans and crop tops.

He locks the car behind him and turns toward the building. They know what they’re both here for.

“Riley, go get that sample. Beg, borrow, or steal, whatever you have to do. Just get it.” She nods. She’s fully capable of flashing her fake ID and getting whatever she wants. _Like an underage kid at a bar, but with way better reasons._

And Jack is here to see his kid. Because Mac looked about ten seconds away from a panic attack when he was being cuffed. _I need to tell him we’re gonna get him out. Because right now he’s probably telling himself it’s over._ Jack knows how the kid’s brain works.

He marches in...and comes face to face with Detective Greer. _Oh shit._ Greer never really seemed to buy Jack’s story about being a lawyer.

Jack swallows. They only met once, and briefly, when Jack picked up Mac’s LAPD file. Hopefully the guy doesn’t remember him. “I’m Roger Preston. Mr. MacGyver’s legal counsel.”

Greer glares at him. “So you’re the one who got that kid off the hook for terrorism.” Jack can feel the man’s eyes sweeping him. _Don’t let my eye twitch. Not this time._ This guy reminds Jack, in an odd way, of some version of himself. In another life, if he was a cop instead of a covert operative. “Go ahead and talk to him. But I'd advise your client to cooperate with us.”

“Thank you, Detective. I'll take it from here.” Jack can still feel the eyes on him as he walks away, and he’s pretty sure that this Greer is about to start seriously digging into his credentials. _Riley’s backstopped this cover over and above the normal, but there’s still a chance he’ll find the cracks._ The guy reminds Jack of himself that way too. He’ll go at this like a bulldog until he finds out what it is that’s bothering him.

The detective’s partner goes with him to unlock the door. Jack winks at her, she looks like she at least is catching the Christmas spirit. Her red suit sets off her grey-streaked brown hair perfectly. She glares at him, and he wonders if he overestimated her holiday cheer. She slams the door behind him.

Mac doesn’t even look up when the door closes, just flinches, staring at the table. He looks absolutely devastated. Jack cringes at the sight of him chained to that table, it’s what his first memory of the kid looks like. Except that version of Mac...he was all cocky bravado, but even then it was to cover up the wounded, terrified kid underneath. This time, there’s no illusion.

“Mac?” He asks, softly. “Geeze, kid, you look awful.” He didn’t really mean to say that part out loud.

“Jack?” Mac’s head snaps up, his eyes huge and scared and desperate. “What are you doing in here?” There’s fear in his face and voice that frightens Jack.

“Working on getting _you_ ,” Jack smiles slightly, “ _out_ of here. We can prove you didn’t kill Morelas.”

“You can?” Mac leans forward, desperation tinging his words. _Oh kiddo._ He knows Mac well enough to see the slight tremors, the anxiety, the tamped-down panic behind his face. _And every minute he spends here makes it worse._

“There was blood at the scene. Degraded, but you remember Frankie Mallory and her magic blood thing?”

Mac raises an eyebrow. “Not magic. DNA reconstruction is scientific.”

“Science, Magic, isn’t there some quote about that?” He thinks it’s a Marvel movie. He can’t remember which one. “Anyway, point is, Riley’s gettin’ her hands on that blood, and once Frankie gets _her_ hands on it, we’re gonna have you outta here.” _It was a miracle she was in the area._ She’ll be at Phoenix by the time he and Riley get back with the sample, courtesy of the Phoenix jet. _Patty’s not pulling the punches on getting Mac out of here._

He looks up to see that Mac is blinking back tears. _What were they doing to him in here?_ “It’s gonna be okay, kiddo. We’re gonna be able to prove you didn’t kill that man, and…”

“Jack…” Mac’s voice is hoarse and shaky, and Jack feels cold fear slide down his back. Whatever Mac is about to tell him can’t be good. But then the kid shakes his head, and some semblance of control masks his face.

Jack slips the paperclip onto the table, and Mac’s eyes widen. “I can’t…”

“Riley killed the cameras and mics. And besides, anything I say in here falls under lawyer-client confidentiality.” He pushes the paperclip across the table. “Just in case, okay, kiddo?” He thinks the detectives are too straight-laced to do anything truly heinous, but his mind can’t shake the image of his kid chained to that table, unable to fight back while someone takes advantage of him.

Mac smiles weakly and palms the paperclip, and Jack is again brutally reminded of their first meeting. When the kid snagged one of those little bent wires off his own LAPD file and got himself out of his cuffs. Jack blinks, because he’s looking across the table at a Mac who does trust him, with shorter hair and a shirt that’s navy blue, not convict orange. He wonders what happened to the Mac with that snarky attitude and a chip on his shoulder.

The kid’s softer, now. Jack knows that the tears glittering in his eyes aren’t something that old version of him would have let anyone see. _He didn’t want anyone to think he was weak._ It hurts to see the kid struggling. But at least he’s letting someone see. _That old version of him kept everything hidden away, bottled it up. And in the end, he’d have shattered._

Jack leans over and puts a comforting hand on Mac’s shoulder. “We’re gonna fix this, okay, Mac?” The kid nods, and then Jack stands up and heads for the door. Walking away is the hardest thing he’s ever done. “When I come back, you’re walking out of here with me.”

Mac smiles, but it never reaches his eyes.

* * *

Greer paces the hallway, wondering what’s going on in that room. Preston never struck him as the lawyer type. Guy’s got war in his eyes. _Could have been ex-military, GI Bill for law school._ But there’s nothing “ex” about the alertness in his eyes and the precision in his movements. That’s someone who courts danger on a regular basis. More the type to be pulling criminals off the streets than defending them in a courtroom.

And the first time he met that man, Preston showed up to get MacGyver’s file for recruitment to that think tank. The one that mysteriously went under literal hours after the kid got out. _Something smells off about this._

He was willing to take Preston at face value, at first. Looking to score a big case, something high profile. And he can’t deny that the evidence at the appeal was hard to argue with. _But what was a lawyer doing pulling a convict for a work release for an organization that doesn’t seem likely to hire someone like him?_ MacGyver’s skill set tends to run toward the illegal.

Dan’s no tinfoil-hat conspiracy theorist. But he’s also not one to believe everything he’s told. And he’d like to know what’s going on.

Because the fact remains that it looks like MacGyver hasn’t been making good use of his newfound freedom. And no matter what Greer’s thrown at him, he hasn’t cracked. It’s a far cry from the way it was when Angus was behind that table three years ago. Prison has hardened him, taken the broken, guilty boy Greer met and turned him into a callous monster. Someone who feels no remorse about killing, anymore. _Last time, he was tripping over himself to admit to what he did. This time, he’s less cooperative than a stone wall._

The door from the evidence room opens, and Preston’s partner steps out. She looks as stressed and tense as she did the last time he saw her. _Kid’s gonna give herself a premature heart attack. She’s in the wrong business._ He wonders what she was doing in there.

He’s about to walk over and ask her himself when Preston walks out of the holding room. “You get him talking?” Greer asks, even though he knows that’s not going to happen.

“My client’s innocent.” There’s something dangerous in Preston’s voice, a bone-chilling threat.

“Save it. I’ve heard that a thousand times.” He watches the two leave, then steps back into the holding room. They have a little time left before the feds show up and take this case.

Angus looks tired. He’s staring down at the table, and Dan can hear his shoe tapping nervously against the concrete. “Made up your mind yet?”

“I’m not guilty.” It’s barely a whisper.

“Then there’s nothing more I can do for you.” Greer glances at the kid, surprised to find that he’s meeting his eyes. “You could have pled guilty and saved yourself some of the publicity.” He knows the kid’s trial will be a circus, especially when his past comes to light. “FBI is on its way in to take over. We’ll be handing you off to them. Last chance to come clean.” MacGyver just shakes his head.

There’s a knock at the door. He stands up and walks out; it’s Forster. “Your ex is calling again.” He sighs. She can’t get him on his cell so she’s ringing the station. Predictable. She’s not one to give up easily.

He pulls out his phone and dials her number. He gets her voicemail, she’s probably still on with the front desk. _Good._ He leaves a quick message, telling her he’ll be over to get the kids in the morning, then hangs up.

He looks into the holding room one more time. MacGyver is sitting quietly, staring into nothing with a broken look on his face. And as Dan watches, a single tear runs down the kid’s cheek. He hasn’t broken like that through any of the interrogation. And something about it suddenly makes this whole case tilt. _He’s not as hardened as we think._ Maybe he needs to go back in there, attack this from another angle. _But if he’s innocent, why can’t he just give us the proof?_ There has to be something that would clear him. Some detail. But he’s refusing to account for his whereabouts at the time and says no one can vouch for him. And his cell phone was off at the time. And not even turned off, the signal was absolutely dead. Like it was broken.

He reaches for the doorknob, thinking about Preston again. About the way the man held himself, like he had a gun in his hands instead of a briefcase. _There’s something missing._ Some vital piece of information that will make all of this make sense.

He’s about to walk in again, and pray he’s right when he calls MacGyver’s bluff, when he hears someone calling for him, behind him. “Detective Greer?” someone asks. There are three men in dark suits standing there. The FBI is here and the case is out of his hands. “I’m Special Agent Dryer. I’ll be taking over this investigation.”

“He’s all yours.” Greer hands the man the file, and Dryer skims it, glancing through the pages.

“I’m sending one of my men to take a look at the evidence ourselves, I’ll expect you to sign all of it over to my team.” Greer nods. He hates dealing with the suits, but it’s part of the job. “Do you have somewhere else we can take Mr. MacGyver for questioning? He’s been in that room too long. Too comfortable.”

“Is the basement still being renovated?” He asks Forster.

“Well, if you call the department running out of money and abandoning the project "still being renovated," sure.” She frowns. “Place is a mess, though. No one's been down there for weeks.”

“Sounds perfect.”

Greer tries to ignore the tingle of concern running through him. This isn’t his case anymore. It’s out of his hands. And so is Angus MacGyver.

* * *

WAR ROOM

BECAUSE JACK’S PACING WAS ANNOYING FRANKIE

This isn’t the first time Jack’s been kicked out of the Phoenix R&D lab. Jill has sent him packing on numerous occasions for bothering her techs by asking them about lightsabers, light speed travel, and otherwise being a nuisance. But this is the first time he’s been kicked out for something that isn’t a joke.

He’s well aware that Frankie can’t rush her process. He was with her the last time she did this. But every second they spend working on this is another second that Mac is left alone and scared in that place. Jack promised to get him out. That’s exactly what he’s going to do.

He knows he’s driving Matty insane now too. She’s looking up from her tablet every two minutes. He sat down once, but he started picking at the stitching on the couch and Matty ‘tsked at him for that too. He’s disassembled and reassembled his sidearm three times.

Matty stands up suddenly, flinging a video chat to the main screen. Frankie’s leaning in from a desk, smiling wearily. But she is smiling.

“I thought you said you were giving me a challenge?” Frankie smirks. “This is nowhere near the level of degraded as half the samples I’ve reconstructed.” She holds up a test tube. “I managed to completely restore this entire sample, and I’m sending my data to Riley now.” She glances at Jack. “I really hope it’s enough. Mac...he doesn’t deserve that.”

Jack had to tell her everything. Apparently Mac never did, back at MIT, and needless to say she was a bit overwhelmed at first. But she seemed to take it all in stride. _She saw him in action. She knows he couldn’t be a cold blooded killer._

“Thanks for everything, Frankie. I’m sorry about doing this to you on Christmas Eve.”

She shakes her head. “Saved me from spending it alone in a hotel.” She was out here for some kind of conference, accepting some award. Jack wants to give her ten. He’ll make her a plaque if this saves Mac. “You know, just getting to work in this lab was a Christmas gift. When I found out this was where Mac worked, I sort of expected to be using a cardboard box centrifuge again.” Jack chuckles. _Phoenix labs are state of the art._ Jack may not know much about science geeky stuff, but he knows half the stuff down there looks like it came straight out of _Star Trek_.

Riley’s rig pings, and she pulls up the file. “Running this through Friar now. I’ve reconfigured him to take in the genetic data and create an image based on that. We don’t have time for Bozer to build a mask. Boze gives her a slightly wounded look.  

He walks over to stand next to Jack. “This is gonna work, right?” Jack sure hopes it does. “How are we gonna explain to the LAPD that people they think are lawyers have sophisticated enough tech to restore a degraded blood sample?”

“We won’t have to, if we can convince this guy to turn himself in and confess,” Jack says. “Which is where Cage comes in.” She got an Iraqi war criminal to flip sides, he’s sure she can do it to some low-rent drug dealer. He’s guessing this was a rival cartel hit that took advantage of the ability to pin it on an outsider. _And a cartel would be interested in getting Mac back behind bars. They’ve got no guarantee he won’t start going after them again._

It feels like it takes forever before Riley looks up at Matty. “Thanks to the genotype and phenotype from Frankie’s sample, I was able to create a profile of our killer.” She tosses a file from her rig to the screen. “And we have a match. Robert Salamatchia.” The photos from his Facebook profile show him hugging two kids, a boy in a blue-and-white soccer jersey and a girl missing one front tooth.

“A soccer dad?” Jack asks.

Riley frowns, bringing up a set of newspaper articles. “A soccer dad whose seventeen-year-old son died from injecting contaminated heroin last year.” Riley glances at the papers, then pulls up her connection to the LAPD files. “According to the toxicology report, the heroin was traced to the La Ola cartel.”

“So this guy’s kid overdoses, and then he goes after the people responsible for selling the drugs?” Bozer asks. _That sounds an awful lot like Mac._ He guesses this is hitting really close to home for Boze.

“Guys.” Riley’s got three more LAPD files open. “There were three more La Ola members killed in the past two weeks. But there wasn’t enough of those bombs left to identify anything about them, and the police assumed they were El Diablos hits, part of a turf war.” Riley flips quickly through the images of scorched walls and burned bodies.

“He’s systematically going after the people who killed his son, using Mac’s MO.”

Sam glances up at the screen. “We’re looking at a copycat vigilante.”

* * *

Mac shivers. The basement is even colder than the holding room. And he doesn’t like the way the two FBI agents are holding him. Their grips are too tight, leaving bruises on his arms. He can feel the paperclip Jack gave him, now tucked safely around one of his sleeve buttons. _If I have to, I can get out of these cuffs..._ But where will he go? To the entire LAPD he’s a criminal. They won’t protect him.

Dyer pulls him into an empty room. Well, he probably thinks it’s empty. Mac can see the half-finished drywall, the box of screws, the scaffolding and lights, the fans and extension cords. If this was an op he’d be out of here in minutes and these guys would be tied up, wondering what hit them. But then he’d have Jack taking care of upstairs, getting him a way out. And there would be exfil at the end of all of it. This time, he’s trapped.

Dyer undoes his cuffs for a moment, only to snap them around a piece of the scaffolding, pulling Mac’s arms uncomfortably high above his head. The man’s walking around him, studying him like he’s a piece of meat, and Mac cringes. _They’re FBI agents, would they do that to me?_ But he knows all too well that a badge is no guarantee of honor. More than one prison guard taught him that the hard way.

 _And it was Morelas that loaned me out to them, for their help._ He can’t really bring himself to care that the man is dead. But that doesn’t mean he wanted to kill him. _Jack, Frankie, Matty, please hurry._ The longer they wait, the longer the FBI has to twist the evidence to fit their story. What if no one will listen to Jack? What if they question where the evidence came from? What if all they do is make it worse?

Mac takes a few deep, shuddery breaths. The position he’s in is straining the bruises on his back and ribs from the SWAT takedown, and he’s terrifyingly vulnerable. The cold bars of the scaffolding against his back make him shudder. It reminds him too much of the past.

* * *

###

CALIFORNIA CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION

MARCH 2015

_Lobo pins Mac’s hands to the wall above him. “Think you’ll handle your problems yourself, do you?”_

_Mac shakes his head mutely. He spent the last two weeks in solitary for punching the guy who tried to attack him in the showers. It hadn’t really been his fault the man slipped on the wet, slimy tile and cracked his head on the wall, but the warden didn’t see it that way._

_Most prisoners will do a lot to avoid solitary. But for the first time since coming through those gates, Mac had actually felt safe. In that cell, by himself, not allowed near any other prisoners...he’d actually slept through the second to last night without nightmares. But last night, he didn’t sleep at all._

_He knew the second he was turned back into the general population he’d be in trouble. La Ola has his back in fights because he’s valuable to them. They can’t be trading him around for favors or contraband if he’s locked up by himself in solitary._

_Sure enough, he hasn’t been back in his cell ten minutes, and Lobo’s bribed a guard into bringing him down here._

_“I needed you this week, Sanchez got himself in some trouble with a guard. And instead, I had to give the guy half our supply of coke to get him to back off. Your little mistake cost me plenty,_ puta. _” Lobo growls. “And I’m here to collect what you owe me.”_

 _Mac shakes his head, but he knows protesting will get him nowhere. It wasn’t his fault he ended up in solitary, not really, but Lobo would probably say he shouldn’t have started the fight, should have let La Ola guys handle it._ But by then it would have been too late. _He doesn’t even really know why he fights back at this point. It’s not like it makes a difference. He’s already ruined, why should he bother? But some part of him, a part that’s getting smaller and smaller each time, refuses to just accept it. Refuses to believe this is all he is._

_But he can’t fight back now. For one thing, this man is taller and stronger, Mac doesn’t stand a chance. For another, he’ll only make it worse. He learned that the hard way too. Instead, he closes his eyes and starts reciting the periodic table in his head. When he makes it through that, he goes on to the prime numbers. Anything, anything to keep him from having to deal with what’s really happening. But after a while, even that fails him._

_When it’s over, Mac’s throat is raw from choked back screaming, his legs won’t hold him up, and every scrap of the peacefulness from solitary is gone. He shivers on the floor in the corner of his cell, too exhausted and shaky to even pull his clothes back on. He doesn’t want to uncurl from the small huddle that feels deceptively protective, even for a moment. Besides, his shirt is torn beyond repair anyway._

_He thinks Lobo dislocated his shoulder at some point, it feels like it. He’s too afraid to look. He can’t bear to look at his own body, at the reddened, bruising fingerprints and all the other reminders of what just happened. What he is._

_He slowly pulls himself to his feet, wincing and shuddering, and stumbles against the wall, gasping at the renewed pain and nearly losing his balance as the dizziness sets in. This time was particularly brutal; Lobo wanted to punish him, remind him of what his place is here. He won’t be able to walk normally for a week._ And they probably want to trade me off to someone again tomorrow.

 _He struggles back into his clothes, trying to ignore the pain wracking his body every time he moves. He has to find a way to make this stop, and there’s a tiny fragment of himself that is refusing to let him give up, refusing to stop clawing and fighting. He stares at the blank wall across the room, wishing he was back in solitary. Where no one can touch him, no one can hurt him. Because he can’t live like this. He can’t. He won’t let himself die, but he has to find a way to survive._ Solitary  was the only place they couldn’t touch me. _This time was an accident, but maybe..._

_He has to get away from Lobo and the cartel. And now he has a plan._

###

* * *

ROBERT SALAMATCHIA’S HOUSE

IT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE A KILLER LIVES HERE.

Riley glances at the mailbox, its post wrapped in colorful Christmas lights. “This is it.” She steps out of the car, choosing to leave all but her small sidearm. Beside her, she sees Sam do the same. She’s still wearing her tactical vest, she’s not going to let herself be taken by surprise. But she has the feeling that, like Mac, this is just a normal person who’s hurting and trying to find a way to make the world work a little more like it should.

When she gets closer, she can hear the TV, it sounds like someone is watching _It’s a Wonderful Life._

“Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around, he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?” Riley winces. They could easily say that about Mac. _If anything goes wrong, and he goes back to prison..._ She’s with Jack. They’re going to break him out if that’s what it takes.

She knocks on the door. She’s taking point, She doesn’t trust Jack not to grab the guy, pin him to the wall, and shake him until he agrees to confess.

The TV goes silent and she hears footsteps coming to the door. A middle-aged man with curly greying hair opens it.

“Robert Salamatchia?” Riley asks.

The man nods. Behind him, his wife and daughter are standing next to the Christmas tree. “You’re not carolers, are you.” It’s not a question.

“Unfortunately not. We’re here to talk to you about…” Riley glances at the girl again. “About what happened two days ago.” She lowers her voice. “May we come in and talk in private?”

He looks past her to Jack and the Tac team waiting by their SUVs, clearly aware that if he refuses they’ll enter by force. “Yes.” He glances at his wife. “Tracy, take Amy upstairs.” The woman looks stunned, confused. Riley knows that feeling all too well. She felt the same way when the police broke down Mac’s door.

Robert glances at the mantelpiece, and Riley sees a photo there of the son, Kyle. There’s a candle burning in front of it. It’s the only photo there, the rest of the mantel is covered with tiny figurines, a nativity creche and a winter village. _They wanted it to feel like he was here celebrating with them, even though he’s gone._ She glances at Bozer, beside her. He’s swallowing hard.

Finally, the wife nods and steers the daughter away. She looks back once, at Riley, and she’s very familiar with the confusion and pain in those big brown eyes. _I’m sure that’s what I looked like both times the cops came for Elwood._ She called him, last night; they’re still a little on edge after the Mareks mess, and he’s left town for a while, just to be safe. But he promises he’s coming back, and she thinks she might believe it this time.

She turns back to Robert, who as soon as his wife disappears collapses into one of the chairs. “What is this all about?” She can tell he’s trying to play innocent.  

Sam sighs. “We know what happened to Kyle, and about what you’ve been doing to the La Ola cartel. And I can’t say I blame you for doing what you did. But right now an innocent man is in jail for your crime, and he’s my friend. And I’m asking you to do the right thing and turn yourself in.”

“Clearly, if someone else was arrested, then I’m not to blame. This is some kind of mistake.” He clearly thinks they have only some circumstantial ties to him. Riley knows why Sam hasn’t brought up the point about the blood evidence yet. _If she does, he’ll mention it in a statement. If all goes well, I replace it where it was and no one is the wiser, and with his confession no one will ask questions._

“I know you were only trying to get justice, Robert. But justice is not letting another person pay for your crimes.”

“I can’t. My wife, my daughter…”

“Are you going to spend the rest of your life lying to them? Or are you going to tell them the truth? What kind of example are you setting for that little girl?” Sam bends down, looking Robert in the eyes. “Do you think Kyle would want you to let someone else spend the rest of his life in prison because of what you did?” She pulls out her phone, pulling up a picture of Mac. It’s from the Christmas party, Riley can see. He’s smiling, laughing. Doesn’t look much older than the boy in the photo on the mantel, really. Same blond hair, same infectious joy. “Are you going to send someone else’s son to prison, because you’re trying to avenge yours?” Riley knows she’s not talking, right now, about James. Because all her body language is pointing to Jack, who’s standing silent in a corner of the room.

Salamatchia crumbles. He rests his head in his hands. “I knew you were going to come for me, sooner or later,” He says quietly. His face, when he looks up, is a bizarre combination of relief and fear and pain. “I just wish I’d been able to take a few more of those bastards down with me.”

“So you’ll turn yourself in?” Riley asks.

“I can’t,” he says again. “If I do I’m a dead man.”

“You’re not makin’ any sense.” Jack’s voice is a dangerous rumble.

“The reason La Ola never paid for what happened to my son is because they had someone in their pocket. Someone in law enforcement. When the case was turned over to the FBI in some kind of jurisdictional war, evidence went missing, a key informant stopped cooperating, and the case fell apart.” He holds out something small and silver, wrapped in a plastic sandwich bag. “This burner phone was hidden in Morelas’s garage. It was a stroke of luck I even found it, but while I was staking out the place, waiting to plant the bomb, I caught him talking to whoever it is he’s working with. I managed to get a look in the garage window, saw him hide the phone in a trash can. So I grabbed it before I set the bomb.” He sighs. “I was going to try and track down the contact myself, but…”

Riley quickly hooks the device to her rig. If she can get a location the call was made to...but whoever Morelas was calling is taking serious measures not to be found.

She looks up at Jack helplessly. “It’s encrypted. Whoever they are, they’re serious.” She can’t even pull a location.

“And if they want you dead, but they think Mac is you…” Jack glances at Cage. Riley can tell exactly what he’s thinking. If there’s a dirty Fed looking to protect La Ola, Mac is in real danger.

* * *

ON THE WAY TO LAPD HEADQUARTERS

LA TRAFFIC SUCKS

“You’re sure Greer said he was calling in the FBI?”

“He told me Mac’s case was going to be out of his hands soon, that I should get him cooperating if I could.” Jack could tell the man was disgusted at being asked to turn over his bust. _But if someone in the local FBI field office is dirty, they’ve probably been watching arrest records and would have demanded to take over._

“If we bust in there now, we break cover and expose the Phoenix,” Sam says.

“I don’t care. Mac’s life is more important,” Matty insists over comms. Jack nods. “Jack, go save our boy.”

Riley holds up the phone. “It would take me days to break the encryptions on this. But I think I found a loophole. The encryption gets sketchy when a call is actually in progress. I might be able to identify the phone it’s been calling if someone makes a call to it.”

Jack takes the phone from her, he knows it’s best if her hands are free to type. He presses send on the single contact and tucks the phone against his ear, swerving to pass a semi going too slowly in his lane.

The phone rings four times before someone picks up, and he hears Riley immediately start typing.

“Who is this?” A voice snaps.

“Hey, man, don’t get so riled up.” Jack slows and thickens his voice, trying to play the part of a junkie who found the phone lying around and is out of it enough to just dial the number. “Who’re youuu?”

“That’s not important. How did you get that phone?” The man asks. Jack hears him put his hand over the speaker and tell someone to start running a trace on the call. It’s garbled, but he’s done the same thing often enough to recognize it.

“Phone’s at LAPD headquarters,” Riley whispers through comms, her voice shaking. “And if you can keep him on about thirty seconds longer we’ll have a name.”

The hand comes off the speaker. Jack hears a soft grunt of pain in the background, and he flinches. He’s sadly familiar with Mac’s voice when he’s hurting. _What are they doing to him?_ “Heyyyy, man...you want this thing or something? It’s really crappy, not even a smartphone,” Jack murmurs, forcing himself to hold onto his cover of confused junkie. All he wants to do is grab this guy and forcibly drag him away from Mac.

The call drops. Jack swears and punches the steering wheel. Because they probably just signed Mac’s death warrant. _The only reason he was still alive was because they didn’t know where that burner was, and thought he might. Now that they know he doesn’t have it, he’s no use to them._

Jack floors the gas pedal, whipping through two more lanes of horn-blaring traffic. “We’re eight minutes out,” Riley says, her voice shaking. She’s clearly come to the same conclusion as Jack. And eight minutes is far too long.

* * *

LAPD HEADQUARTERS

MAC IS GETTING REALLY TIRED OF BEING TIED UP IN BASEMENTS

Mac takes a deep breath of dusty, paint and drywall mud-scented air, and tries to relax. They haven’t done anything to him yet. He wonders if it’s an intimidation tactic. If so, their stalling is actually in his favor, because Jack’s going to be coming back with their evidence...he’s not really sure how they’re going to swing that, but he trusts them. Jack won’t leave him here. He knows that one thing for sure.

The door opens, and the third agent, the one Mac thinks was sent to pick up evidence, walks in. Dryer turns to him, frowning. “Was it there?”

The agent shakes his head. “I checked every single piece of logged evidence. Aside from a blood sample on a fragment of the car that had gone missing somehow. It’s not there.”

“Then he must have taken it.” Dryer looks back at Mac, and he knows that stare. It’s the look of someone who won’t stop until he gets what he wants.

Mac’s about to protest that he’s innocent, he didn’t do anything, much less withhold a piece of valuable evidence. But the fist slammed into his stomach leaves him with no breath to do it. Another to the face draws blood. He spits onto the concrete floor,t he red is glaring against the fluorescent-lit concrete. _Wow, why am I fixating on that?_ He wonders if it’s the exhaustion or dehydration or maybe they’ve already given him a concussion. Or maybe it’s just the first phase of the oncoming panic attack.

“We know you took a phone from Morelas’s garage. Where is it?” Dryer snaps. _Why does he know?_ There’s something wrong with that and Mac wishes his mind would stop whirling long enough for him to figure out what. He guesses he doesn’t answer fast enough, because there’s another hit to his jaw. He can see sparks.

“Can’t tell you...if you break my jaw.” He laughs around the mouthful of blood. Jack would say that. Jack’s coming, he has to stall. That’s usually Jack’s job.

Dryer pulls out a gun and points it at Mac’s leg. “Tell me. Now. Or I start shooting.”

“And if I do, you’ll put a bullet in my head, so I think I’m better off keeping my mouth shut.” Mac’s finally figured out what’s wrong. _Guess having a gun pointed in my direction kinda helps to clear the head._ These guys shouldn’t know what was in that garage, unless they knew about it before. Unless they’re dirty, on La Ola payroll. _There were always rumors La Ola had FBI agents in their pocket._ They had the money and the influence to do it.

“You’ll wish you were dead when I’m done with you.” The next round of punches leaves a snapped rib, and Mac’s wrists are cut and bleeding; he can’t support his own weight and he’s hanging from the cuffs now. Dryer pulls out a small knife. “We’ve got all night to get that location out of you. How long can you last?”

 _Longer than you think._ Clearly Dryer thinks he’s scary. But he’s nothing compared to Murdoc. This guy’s just another cartel thug. Mac’s very familiar with them. This guy’s not that bright. And he’s definitely not paying attention to what Mac’s doing with his fingers.

Dryer steps toward him, raising the knife, when there’s a sudden buzz and chirp of a phone ringing. Dryer frowns and looks at both of his men, before pulling his own phone out of his pocket. He glances at the screen, then at Mac. He looks incredibly confused.

“Who is this?” He snaps

“Hey, man, don’t get so riled up.” Mac would know Jack’s voice anywhere, even if he’s pretending to be totally wasted. “Who’re youuu?”

“That’s not important. How did you get that phone?” Dryer slaps his hand over the phone and whispers to one of his men to run a trace. Mac feels his fingers slide over the blood-slick wire in them. His hands are going numb, he has to hurry...

“Heyyyy, man...you want this thing or something? It’s really crappy, not even a smartphone,” Jack’s garbled voice continues. But then Dryer’s man nods, and Dryer hangs up the call, turning toward Mac.

“He doesn’t have it. He’s no further use to us.” He pulls his gun again, aiming for Mac’s head…

And Mac swings the cuffs as hard as he can, knocking the gun sideways. It goes off, blowing a hole in the newly replaced drywall. Mac’s already wrapping the chain of the cuffs around Dryer’s wrist. He pulls, and the gun flies out of his hand, clattering under the scaffolding. The momentum slams Dryer himself to the ground.

By this point the other two agents are pulling their own weapons. Mac throws himself behind a few of the buckets of drywall mud and yanks the orange cord stretching across the floor. It tangles between the men’s feet, making them stumble, off balance and unable to aim. Mac shoves the mud buckets on their side, rolling them one after another. Both men dodge the first one, but the second one takes one of the agents out. The third levels his gun at Mac again.

He’s still got one more trick up his sleeve. He pulls the extension cord again, this time as hard as he can, and the lights attached to the top of the scaffolding groan, then sent the whole thing over in a thud and a cloud of dust, and all of them hit the floor.

Mac staggers to his feet, feeling dust caking in the blood running down from a cut by his hairline. Dryer is groaning, half pinned under the heap of fallen metal, and the other two agents are unconscious. Mac picks up the handcuffs from the floor and starts pulling Dryer’s hands behind him.

Then the door flies open, and Greer, Forster, and three LAPD officers race in, guns drawn. _They must have heard the shot fired._ Mac stands up, raising his hands. He doesn’t want to get shot. Not after he just avoided that.

Greer looks around the room. “What the hell happened down here?” Mac knows how bad this looks. How very, very, very bad. He just hopes that he’ll be able to make them understand.

“Those FBI agents were working with the La Ola cartel…” He breaks off as Forster shoves him to his knees, pulling out her cuffs and starting to snap his hands behind him again. His bleeding wrists sear with pain. “They wanted a phone that was supposed to be in Morelas’s garage…”

“I think he’s talkin’ about this phone,” Jack says, stepping into the room in full tac gear and waving an evidence bag around. “Oh man, Mac, I thought you were a goner.”

“What the hell is going on here?!” There’s a purple vein pulsing at Greer’s temple, Mac’s a little afraid the guy’s gonna keel over right there in front of them. “Who are you people, what are you doing here, and why are there three unconscious FBI agents on the floor?”

“I think that might be a little easier to explain upstairs,” Jack says. “There’s someone who has to talk to you.”

Riley steps into the room, holding up her rig. “Think you might want to check this guy’s,” She points the toe of her boot at Dyer, “phone. I think you’ll find several calls to this burner, which just happens to have some fingerprints on it, and a few hairs stuck in the case. Send those through DNA and I think you’ll find a match to Morelas.”

Greer is staring, dumbfounded. And then a young desk sergeant rushes down, nearly colliding with Riley. “Detective, there’s a man upstairs who says he’s here to confess to the Morelas bombing.”

Mac feels Forster’s grip on his arms loosen. “I told you I didn’t do it.” Greer just shakes his head, staring from Jack to Mac to Riley to the mess in the room. He has no idea what’s going on, but it sounds like the team found the real bomber, and he knows they’ll explain everything later. Right now, he just wants someone to figure something out and let him go.

Greer turns toward the stairway, still watching Jack and the others out of the corner of his eye. “Let the kid go,” He calls to Forster. “He’s not gonna go anywhere.” She sighs, but releases him from the cuffs. The second he’s free, Mac stumbles to his feet and over to Jack. He doesn’t collapse into him the way he wants to, there’s too much of an audience here, but he does lean against him. Jack’s solid warmth is a comfort.

His head is spinning with everything that just happened, but Jack is the one solid thing he can always depend on. As long as he has Jack, he can worry about everything else later.

Jack leans down, speaking softly so Mac’s the only one who can understand him. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get there in time to save you.”

“Actually, you did.” Mac holds up the bloodstained, untwisted paperclip. “You gave me the chance to save myself.”

“You still look like hell, kid.” Jack frowns, and Mac remembers that he’s probably all bruises and blood. “But I’m glad you’re alive.” Mac leans a little further against him. _Yeah, me too._

* * *

Dan’s seen plenty of weird cases in his twenty-eight years on the force. But nothing has topped this one. First he responds to shots fired, inside the building, to find his prisoner free of his cuffs and standing over three more or less unconscious FBI agents. And then his not-lawyer comes storming in in full on tactical assault gear, with the other not-lawyer and a couple other people, and hands over a damning piece of evidence that ties those FBI agents to the dead man. And then he gets upstairs to find a nervous-looking soccer dad pacing the hallway, who the second he sees him starts blurting out the whole story of why he killed not only Morelas, but three other La Ola members.

And now the not-lawyer and the kid are in his office. MacGyver looks like he was beat to hell and back, and Greer feels a sudden stab of guilt. He handed him over to those FBI men despite his instincts telling him something was off.

“So let me get this straight, you took out all three of those men, by yourself, with the random junk laying around the basement?” He’s read MacGyver’s file, seen the reports from the Phoenix’s vigilante activities. But he’s never seen it in person. _He is as good as they claimed._

“That’s what I’m good at.” Angus smiles, then winces at his split lip. “I just sort of make it up as I go along, and I usually find whatever I need.”

“No wonder a ‘think tank’ wanted you.” Greer raises an eyebrow. There’s no way that’s what the kid’s actually doing. But he’s not going to make it an issue. _Streets are safer with him out there. Hell, the whole world’s probably safer._ And at least this time, he’s doing it the sort of legal way. “Since Salamatchia confessed to all the recent vigilante activity, it appears you’re free to go.”

“And as for you…” Forster gives the not-lawyer, who’s apparently actually named Jack Dalton, a sidelong glance. “We could charge you with impersonating an officer of the court and obstruction of justice.”

“Who, me?” Jack shrugs, the picture of fake innocence.

“But we’ll give you a warning instead. You're both free to go.” Greer shakes his head. He’s got a mountain of paperwork to fill out, and he’s still on the hook for picking up the kids tomorrow. “Merry Christmas, Mr. MacGyver.”

“Merry Christmas, Detective Greer.”

* * *

MAC’S HOUSE

A LITTLE THE WORSE FOR WEAR, BUT IT CAN BE FIXED

Mac stares at the splintered doorjamb. “Did they really need to kick my whole door down?”

“Dude, you got arrested, accused of murder, and half pulverized by a couple crooked feds, and you’re worried about the door?” Jack shakes his head. “You’ve got messed up priorities, man.”

“Penny said she’d take care of Mickey till we got the door fixed,” Bozer says. “And I told her they got you out.” Mac nods. “She said she was about to come down there herself and give someone an earful.” Mac has no doubt she would have. She’s been sticking up for him since she first got assigned as his P.O. He wonders if she made those atrocious gingerbread men again this year. _She’d better be careful, Mickey likes the smell of molasses for some reason._ They learned that the hard way a few days ago with Bozer.

Matty’s just hanging up her phone when Mac walks in. “Hey, Blondie. Good to have you back.” He smiles shakily. “I’ve sent Cage in as a social worker to try and flip those three FBI agents, and apparently one of Dryer’s partners is willing to cooperate. He’s going to give us everything we need to rip La Ola’s roots out of all the law enforcement agencies in LA.”

Mac breathes a shaky sigh of relief. _At least Salamatchia will be able to know that the cartel can’t hide behind crooked cops and feds anymore._ Jack told him everything, and Mac can’t bring himself to be truly angry at the man, even if he is responsible for Mac being falsely accused. _He was just trying to fight back. Like me._ Except that this man killed.

Mac shakes off the thoughts of the past. He’s not there anymore. It’s over, and done, and he’s free and safe and back with his family. And friends.

“Hi Mac.” Frankie smiles, holding a plate of sliced meat in her hand. Apparently Bozer managed to talk her into trying the pastrami.

“I hear I should be thanking you for getting me out of there,” He says. “I really appreciate you spending the time…”

Frankie cuts him off. “I’m sorry it took you being in trouble for me to get to see you again.” She grins. “I was really hoping you’d come back to MIT.”

Mac shrugs. “I couldn’t leave this.” He looks around at Matty and Patty and Bozer and Jill and Riley and Jack. “This is where I belong.”

She nods. “I think you made the right choice.” She glances around the room at the team. “What I saw tonight...those aren’t just coworkers. Those are family. Jack was like scary dad mode the whole time, and Riley kept asking me if she could do anything to help, and I think if I’d failed Patty and Matty would have killed me and made the body disappear.” She holds up the plate. “And Bozer’s trying to feed me enough for an army.”

“They’re the best family I could ask for,” Mac says. He glances at Frankie again, she’s watching him with some concern. Then he remembers there’s probably blood and construction dust all over him. “Uh, I’m gonna go take a shower, I’ll be right back,” he says to Bozer, who’s carving up his pastrami and handing out slices. He notices Jill discreetly stuffing hers into her purse, probably to take home to her cats.

He steps into his bedroom, turns on the water, and starts to pull off his filthy shirt. A sudden flare of pain across his ribs stops him with a strangled yelp. He sits down on the edge of the bed, panting, waiting for it to subside.

“You good in there, hoss?” Jack asks. Mac honestly doesn’t know what to say. He leans on the edge of the bed, and he can hear the water. And all of a sudden he’s back there in CCI, feet sliding on moldy concrete floors, lukewarm water trickling down his neck as he’s shoved against a cold tile wall.

He doesn’t realize he’s slid from the bed to the floor, or that he’s started crying, until he feels Jack’s arms around his shoulders. “Hey, kiddo, it’s okay. It’s over. You’re safe.” Mac just turns and buries his face in Jack’s shoulder. He can’t bring himself to tell him what’s wrong, but he has the feeling Jack already knows, at least as much as he needs to. “No one is gonna take you away. No one’s sending you back to prison.”

Mac nods and pulls back, choking back tears and scrubbing at his eyes, flinching when dust makes them sting. _I probably look like even more of a wreck now._ But he doesn’t know if he can bring himself to go in that shower. Or if he’ll just have a panic attack. Which he doesn't want to do.

He’s dimly aware of Jack rummaging around, and he hears the water shut off. Jack comes back out from the bathroom with a couple towels in his hand, steaming. Mac realizes he’s laid out a clean shirt on the bed as well. “Hey, kiddo, I’m just gonna check over those bruises, sounds like they’re worse than you were lettin’ on. And I brought you something to clean up a little, okay?”

Mac nods, swallowing. Jack knows him so well. He carefully unbuttons his shirt the rest of the way, and lets Jack help him slide it off his arms. His shoulders are so sore. Jack whistles softly when he sees the bruises, gently probing Mac’s sides with his fingers. Mac has to struggle to hold back a shiver, because that will hurt. _It’s just Jack. He would never ever hurt you._

“Looks like you got some cracked ribs, but nothing about to snap off and go into a lung, so I guess I don’t have to drag you kicking and screaming to Phoenix medical. I’m gonna go get something to clean up your wrists a little better, okay?” Jack disappears into the bathroom again, and Mac scrubs one of the warm towels over his face, wincing when the cloth hits the bloody, gashed spots. He hasn’t dared to look in a mirror yet, he hopes it’s not as bad as it felt. Jack returns with a bottle of alcohol and some antibiotic cream. He carefully disinfects the cuts ringing Mac’s wrists, then moves on to the ones on his lip and cheek. “Aww kiddo.”

“Looks worse than it feels,” Mac mumbles. He thinks his lip is swelling up pretty good. Also, he apparently bit his tongue somewhere in all that. He’ll have to remember to avoid salty food for a while, or anything acidic.

He finishes scrubbing the grime he can feel out of his hair with the second towel. At least he hopefully looks less horrible. He’ll take a shower later, when he’s feeling up to it. “Thanks Jack. For everything.” Jack takes the grimy, bloody towels from him, smiling gently.

“Anytime, kiddo. Any time.” He holds up the clean shirt, and helps Mac put it on carefully. His shoulders and sides still ache, but he’s starting to feel a little better. _I’m going to be okay. I’m alright._

He’s suddenly aware that his pocket is buzzing. They gave him back his phone when they let him go. Mac picks up the phone and answers, hoping his voice stays steady. “Yeah, Sam?”

There’s nothing but strangled panting from the other end. And then a single word. “Murdoc…”

* * *

SAM’S APARTMENT

LAST STOP BEFORE THE CHRISTMAS PARTY

Sam knows it’s four a.m. and she hasn’t slept since six yesterday morning. But she feels pretty alert. She’s gone longer without sleep, and she had coffee on the way back from talking to those FBI agents. _This case is gonna have a lot of loose threads, but hopefully the LAPD knows when not to pull on them._ At least Salamatchia’s confession completely exonerated Mac.

She unlocks her door and hurries inside. She’s got a few things to pick up before she heads over, it’s technically Christmas Day now, so it’s time to hand out the gifts she got for everyone. She’s especially excited to give Mac his. _I want to see the look on his face when he realizes I wrapped a single broken phone in five different layers of paper and three boxes._

She’s just opening her closet when she hears it. A soft footstep, and then a whistle. The beginning of “Jingle Bells.” _There’s only one person I know who uses music as a calling card._

She reaches deeper into the closet for the gun tucked away on the top shelf. And then there’s a searing pain in her stomach and she collapses to the floor.

Murdoc steps out of the shadows, still whistling eerily. “Last time I shot you, you were wearing a vest, Deborah. Such a pity.” He leans down, dipping his fingers in the blood. Sam glares at him, pushing herself up on one arm. Then another bullet rips through her and she gasps, falling back. “Looks like I win this little game.” He smiles. “I would have liked to drag it out a little longer, but unfortunately, your contract had a clock on it. And it looks like I’ll be just in time to get paid.” He pulls out a phone and snaps a picture. “And now, I hear our favorite little boy genius just spent the night in jail. I think I’ll drop by and congratulate him on getting out.”

Sam drags in a painful breath. “Don’t touch him.”

“Why? Are you going to stop me? No, you’re going to lay there and bleed out and know that you couldn’t save him.” Murdoc stands up. “Goodbye, Deborah.” She sinks back to the floor as he disappears, and she hears the door close.

She pushes herself back to one elbow, ignoring the burning pain in her stomach, and drags herself over to the counter where she set her phone. She runs her hand along it, and her fingers brush the case. She half screams, half groans when she only pushes it further in. _Come on!_ She pushes herself up a little farther and slams her hand onto it just as her strength gives out and she crashes back to the floor. The phone falls with her.

She pants, spitting blood onto the floor, as she opens the phone and clicks on Mac’s number. It rings three times before he picks up, and by the time he answers her heart is racing, breath coming in even shorter gasps. _He can’t have gotten there yet. It didn’t take me that long to get the phone, did it?_ It couldn’t have or she would have bled out by now.

“Yeah, Sam?” Mac’s voice is a little shaky, a little weak, but he’s alive. She wants to cry with relief. _But he won’t be for much longer if I don’t help him._

Sam tries to gasp out the warning. “Murdoc…” He’s coming for Mac. She has to tell him. She’s got to save him, even if it’s too late to save herself. _It doesn’t matter if I die. But it matters if he does._ She lets her head fall back to the floor. She’s done all she can. The world fades slowly into blackness.


	12. Mac+Jack

###  212-Mac+Jack

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

EVERYTHING HERE CAN KILL YOU. INCLUDING THE PEOPLE.

Matty’s never been fond of Australia. The CIA stationed her in Sydney for six months on a rotation, and she never wanted to go back. The smell of literally melting asphalt meets her nose as she steps out of the jet. Midwinter in the States means height of summer in Australia. She chokes back a wave of nausea and puts on her sunglasses, squinting through the heat haze coming up off the runway. The car she called for is waiting, an unassuming white Land Rover.

She consults her tablet, then sets for Sustainable Future Design Consultants, and hands the directions over to the driver, a tall, tanned young man with a few more scars than should be typical for a daredevil surfer. She feels bad about pulling Darren Ward off his long term undercover, but this is a matter of life and death. She leans back in the seat, feeling the feeble struggle as the air conditioning tries to keep up with the overpowering heat.

SFD’s building is low and looks slightly out of place in the maze of steel and glass. But it’s cool and dim inside, and Matty blinks, letting her eyes adjust. The natural lighting is pleasant, but not overpowering, and Matty can already tell that this place exudes comfort, hominess, and a slightly organic-futuristic aura.  _ I guess knowing how to draw people in runs in the family.  _ Sam uses what she knows about people’s psychology to get them talking. Linsey clearly uses it to convince them to hire her. 

Matty stops at the reception desk. “Bethany Horowitz. I have an appointment to see Ms. Riddick?” 

“I’m sorry, I don’t think…” The woman says. Matty just smiles. “Oh wait, I’m so sorry. You’re right here, her last of the day.”  _ Riley did good work. _ “Go right into the conference room if you’d like, Ms. Horowitz. Linsey will be with you in a minute.” Matty hears her pick up the phone as she walks away, to call Linsey in, more than likely. 

Matty sits down, pouring herself a cup of coffee. She dozed on the flight over, but she still feels wrung out and exhausted. 

The door opens, and she blinks. The young woman in a beige pantsuit is shockingly similar to Sam. There’s a more rounded softness to her features, but the same confidence, the same enthusiasm in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Ms. Horowitz, it appears that I somehow forgot we were meeting today. Please remind me what business you represent? I can’t find our consultation notes in my files.” 

“Please close the door.” Matty stands up from her chair as Linsey does, frowning. “I’m sorry to have misled you, but time was of the essence. My name is Matilda Webber, and I’m here on behalf of the Phoenix Foundation. We need to talk about your sister.”

Linsey’s hand is on the doorknob, and her face looks stricken. “My sister died over ten years ago. I’m sorry, you must have been misinformed.” Her voice shudders, whether with fear or emotion Matty isn’t sure. 

Matty simply pulls up the photo she took yesterday (was it really that short a time ago?) of the team around the fire. “See for yourself.” The image is date-stamped, there’s no way Linsey can argue with it. “I realize this is all going to be very overwhelming for you, but I need you to come with me now. Or your sister is going to die, and this time, it won’t be a hoax.” 

* * *

PHOENIX MEDICAL

THE BEST TRAUMA CENTER IN LA YOU’LL NEVER HEAR ABOUT

Riley is currently functioning on break room coffee and Skittles. She half expected Jack to make a dumb joke and tell her she’s going to end up in here herself if she keeps eating junk food. But they’re all too afraid to make jokes right now.  _ We just sat in a hospital watching Mac on the brink of death. And now we have to wonder if Sam will survive.  _

When the doctor reported that both shots had struck Cage’s liver, and that removing it had been the only course of action possible, Matty left, her face a mask of concern and determination. Riley knows what she’s thinking.  _ Getting a liver transplant takes time. And it would be unethical for me to prioritize Sam over someone else, she would never want that.  _ But her long-lost sister was likely to be a viable match.  _ Matty opened that file and okayed the search. So she knows everything there is to know about her. _

Matty just texted her saying she’s en route from the airport with Linsey. She’s going to take her straight to the OR, since the basic testing they did on the plane confirmed that Linsey is a potential donor. 

Riley glances around the room. Mac is fretfully bending paperclips into all sorts of shapes, Bozer keeps getting up and asking everyone if they need anything, Jack is sitting with one arm around Mac’s shoulder, occasionally forcing a bag of chips or a cup of water into his hands instead of the paperclips, Matty is “reading” but hasn’t touched the screen of her tablet in over half an hour, Patty steps in every hour on the hour, no matter what ops she’s directing upstairs, and Riley’s been obsessively scanning the city for Murdoc. But she loses him as soon as he leaves Cage’s apartment.  _ He’s somewhere in the city, and we have no idea where. _

Mac is clearly struggling the most.  _ These past couple days have been hell. _ He’s been arrested, and now one of his teammates is clinging to life in an ICU, and his worst enemy is probably looking for him again. She can see why Jack is refusing to leave Mac’s side. 

Jill steps in. She looks exhausted too, but she’s carrying a paper bag that she hands off to Bozer. “I made sandwiches. I thought you might want something to eat besides candy and potato chips.” 

Bozer grabs one out and tears into it, Riley smells sourdough and mustard and her stomach growls. She accepts one as well, then hands the others to Jack.  _ He’ll be able to make Mac eat. I hope. _ She stands up, wincing at the cramps in her legs, and buys a cranberry juice from the vending machine to go with the turkey and tomato sandwich.  _ It sort of seems Christmassy.  _

Matty comes in just as they’re finishing eating. “I took Ms. Riddick in to the doctors. It’s out of our hands now.” She looks as wrung out as the rest of them. She sits down in the chair on the far side of Mac and reaches over to hold his hand. 

Patty comes in twice more, and Riley gives her a short update on the situation. Which is basically that they still know nothing. About Cage or Murdoc. She’s just leaving the second time when the door to the trauma unit opens. 

A doctor steps out into the room, smiling, her scrubs still sprinkled with blood. “Ms. Cage’s transplant appears to have been a success. Of course, it’ll be some time before we can be fully certain, but she’s awake and coherent. She said to tell you she’s sorry she ruined your Christmas party.”

“Tell her the third time’s a charm,” Jack chuckles. “We’ll get it eventually.” There’s an overwhelming sense of relief, and Riley slumps down in her chair, going from wired to exhausted in seconds. 

“And against my better judgement, I’m going to let her have what she asked for and let her see you all. I’m sure she won’t actually rest until she’s sure you’re all okay. She’s been worried about you. The second she woke up she asked if MacGyver was safe. If he got her message.” 

Mac nods. “That’s me, and I did.” He stands up, then promptly collapses back into his seat with a soft wince.  _ He already had to insist twice that he was fine and he didn’t need the medical staff looking at him.  _ As it is, they brought an ice pack for his swollen lip. “So we can see her?”

“For a short time. It would put her mind at ease.” She smiles. “I’ve worked with agents long enough to know that it’s often more agitating to not let them see their team than to have people traipsing in and out.”

When they open the door, Riley lets Mac go in first. Cage was worried about him, she’s going to need to see that he’s okay. “Hey, Sam,” Mac says softly.

“Mac!” Her voice is choked and weak, but she’s alive. “I was afraid…”

“We got your message. You told us Murdoc was coming. I’m alright.” He sits down, taking her hand, careful not to disturb the IV. “Thank you. You probably saved my life. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Cage coughs, then winces, groaning. “Definitely worse than a stab wound.” She glances up at him. “Murdoc was there because someone was paying him to kill me. I don’t know who; maybe someone from Scorpion. But then…” She coughs again, “he said he was coming for you.”

“Don’t worry,” Jack says, wrapping his arm around Mac’s shoulder. “I’ll keep that maniac away from him.” He sighs. “Get some rest, Cage. You did good today.” 

Riley waits until they leave. “Hey Sam.”

“Hey.” Sam smiles. “Sorry you had to spend Christmas in here.”

“I’m sorry  _ you _ did.” Riley sighs. “We dragged you into this war with Murdoc…”

“If it wasn’t him, it would have been someone else. I have a dozen contracts on my head, and sooner or later someone was going to follow through. But thanks to you, I had people who have my back. People who saved my life. You got me here. You tracked down Linsey. I’m alive because I have you all.” 

Sam falls asleep shortly after that, but her sister in the room across from her is wide awake. Riley sits down in a chair next to the young woman’s bed. It’s strange to think Linsey is actually younger than she herself is.  _ I wonder if Sam saw her little sister every time she looked at me. _

“So you’re Cage’s sister.” 

“I heard that’s what she’s calling herself now.” Linsey has dirty-blonde hair instead of Cage’s platinum tint, and her features are a little rounder, with less harsh angles. But they’re clearly related. 

“How are you doing?” Linsey looks pale under her strong bronze tan, but not nearly as run down as Sam. 

“It’s a bit of a whiplash, to find out the sister I thought was dead is alive, but dying, and if I want her to stay alive, I have to fly to LA and donate half my liver.” Linsey’s slightly snarky persona is a whole lot like Sam’s. “But I’ll survive.” She smiles. “The Riddicks are tough.” 

Riley nods. “So I’ve noticed.”

“And you’re her co-workers?” Linsey asks. “And don’t bother telling me that it’s at a think tank. Webber told me everything. And the private jet with a portable medical lab inside kind of would have given it away anyway.”

Riley smiles. “I know you’re probably going to have some rough patches reconnecting to your sister. But just know that she never forgot you. And everything she did, she did to keep you safe.”

Linsey swipes at her cheek, wiping away a single tear. “I just...I feel like all of you know her better than I do.” 

“Well, we’ve got plenty of time to share that with you,” Riley says, grinning. “She was my roommate for a year. And there was this time we started a prank war…” 

* * *

Jack’s exhausted. He slept a little in the waiting room, he’s become a pro at that,  _ especially since I started working with the walking health and safety hazard here, _ but he’s still tired. Fluorescent lights and plastic chairs are hardly conducive to a relaxing rest.

He leaves Riley talking to Cage’s sister and pulls a very drowsy-looking Mac away from Cage’s bedside. “Hey, she needs sleep, and so do you, kid.” Mac nods slightly and allows Jack to lead him out to his car.

Jack can tell the kid’s beating himself up over this one, he’s been twisting the chain of Jack’s dogtags so much Jack’s afraid he’s going to snap it. He decides to head off the problem at the start. “Mac, so help me if you’re blaming yourself...”

“She’s hurt because Murdoc wanted to get to me.”  _ Yeah, I figured you were gonna say something like that. _

“Mac. It was  _ not _ your fault. Cage made a lotta enemies. She said herself Murdoc was collecting on a contract. This wasn’t about you.” 

“But she said…”

“He was coming after you too, because he was in town and he’s an obsessed creep.” Jack has no intention of letting Mac out of his sight any time soon. He’s trying not to think about everything they found in that warehouse the last time Murdoc showed his face.  _ I know the next time he got his hands on Mac, there would be no more restraint. _ Jack’s still shocked that his kid was returned with no more than some cuts and bruises. He’d say he was grateful, but that’s giving that psycho more than he deserves.  _ He didn’t leave Mac more or less unscathed for no reason. _ Jack thinks it’s arguably given Mac even more nightmares. He’s been coming to terms with being the victim of convenience, but being the object of that eerie single-minded obsession is even more terrifying.  _ Those men in prison can’t hurt him anymore, and I’m around to protect him from some of the others, but Murdoc wanted to remind him that even I can’t help Mac if Murdoc comes for him. _

He switches on the blinker for the street that takes them back to his apartment, but Mac shakes his head. “My house, Jack.” 

“Kiddo, you can’t stay in that house, not with Murdoc around and definitely not after all that.” There’s way too much trauma behind those walls, Jack doesn’t know why Mac hasn’t just moved at this point. Jack knows he’d feel a lot safer if Mac did. 

“I’ll just pick up some stuff I need.” Mac glances at him. “All the clues to James are in a box in my room. I don’t want to just leave them there.” 

Jack nods. “Okay, that’s probably a good idea. Especially with Captain Crazy on the loose.” 

“Do you think he’s still going to…” Mac trails off.

“I won’t let him, kiddo.” Jack isn’t taking his eyes off the road, but that’s because he doesn’t know where Murdoc might be hiding out.  _ Every cop in the city is looking for him, and so is every available Phoenix resource.  _ But that’s never stopped him before. 

He pulls into Mac’s driveway and shuts the car off, getting out before Mac’s even unbuckled his seatbelt. 

“You don’t have to come with me, I’m just grabbing a box,” Mac says. 

“Dude, Murdoc has a thing for getting into your house. And not that I’m not impressed with that security system Matty picked, but still. Better safe than sorry, am I right?” He pats the gun tucked in the waist of his pants. Mac chuckles and shakes his head, but Jack can see the relief in his eyes. 

Mac walks up and pulls out his key, fitting it into the lock. “Hopefully they didn’t re-key the place. But I think they would have called Bozer if they did. He’s the one who called  _ them. _ ”

Jack glances at the door. It’s not an exact match to the one Mac had, but it’s pretty close. “Man, I can’t believe a repair crew came out here on Christmas Day to fix a door.”

“I mean, it’s not like people can have a huge gaping hole in their house just because it’s a holiday. Probably does mean we’ll get charged extra, though.” He shrugs. Jack sees him shudder slightly as he walks in, his last vivid memory of that hallway is of being thrown to the floor and cuffed, dragged away on a murder charge. 

Jack sniffs, the room smells...odd. “Geeze, Mac. Did Bozer leave the pastrami out?”

“Uh...that’s more of a chemical smell,” Mac says. That’s actually kind of reassuring, Mac’s almost always got some kind of experiment going on.  _ Probably something that got left too long while he wasn’t home to look after it.  _

“Well, let’s at least open a window, start airing the place out.” 

Jack glances at the door. “Well, looks like they’ve got it swinging the right way at least.” He pushes it shut. And there’s an odd whining click. He freezes. “Mac, did you just hear that...click?”

“Uh, like the kind that goes before ‘kaboom’?” Mac whispers. His whole body is suddenly tense, almost vibrating. “Yeah. I heard it.” 

“You don’t think…”

And then there’s the rasp of a key in the lock and Jack freezes. Mac beats him to the warning. “Bozer, get away from the door now!” 

“Mac, are you okay? Why can't I come in?”

“Because I’m pretty sure that door is rigged to explode,” Mac says. Jack hears Bozer gasp and step back. “And turn off your phone. Now. Jack, do it too.” Jack nods, pulling his phone out and shutting it down.  _ At least he didn’t ask to tear it apart this time. _ Granted, if that’s what Mac needs to get them out of here in one piece, though, he won’t argue. 

Mac sets his own phone down on the counter and glances at the alarm box next to the door. Jack leans in, and now he can see small scrapes and gouges on the box, and smell fresh paint and drywall mud. “It’s wired to the security system,” Mac whispers. “Every window and every door in this house is alarmed. If we touch any of them…”

“We set off the bomb.” Jack suddenly regrets his insistence on making sure Mac’s house was break-in proof. Because now it’s trapped them inside with a bomb that will kill them if they make the slightest mistake. “Man, I knew we shoulda just gone to my place.” 

* * *

LOS ANGELES

2013

_ Mac wipes a shaky hand across his forehead, brushing away sweat. It’s August in the city, humid and warm. And the fact that he’s looking down at a bomb that will blow him sky high in the next two minutes if he can’t disarm it isn’t really helping either.  _

_ Doing this is hard. Doing it without Pena feels damn near impossible.  _

_ He checks the wires for the fifteenth time, following the ones connected to the detonator back to the switch. It’s a crude cartel device, but clearly designed as a trap. Just like everything about tonight. _

_ He’d heard from Carlos that the Meridas were moving a large stash of heroin, storing it overnight in a warehouse in LA before running it further north. He broke into the warehouse, only to find no drugs and a very big bomb.  _ They’re getting smarter. Planting false clues to lure me into a trap.

_ It’s never been this bad before. But then again, Mac’s never been so driven before. Now he’s lost not just a kid who felt like a little brother, but the only person who’d come close to feeling like a dad again. And he wants the cartels to pay. _

_ In the past few months he’s gone up against more cartel goons than in the past three  _ years _ he’s been the Phoenix. He’s not careful anymore, he has the scars to prove it. The knife gashes on his chest and arms still ache whenever he moves. It was only a matter of time before something like this happened. _

Vigilantes like me, they don’t give up and fade away. They go out in a blaze _. And tonight just might be his night.  _

_ He opens the scissors on his knife, selecting the wire he thinks is the most likely to not kill him if he cuts it. But his fingers are shaking, just a little, and he hesitates. There’s a red wire snaking off to the side. A dummy, it’ll set off the bomb if he cuts it. But for a moment, he imagines pulling the scissors away from the wire he picked, and snipping that one. Letting everything end right here, right now. _

The call of the void, or _l'appel du vide,_ from the French where it originated. _Mac knows the name for it, he’s read articles about it. People standing on ledges who suddenly contemplate what it would be like to jump, or someone driving who for a moment thinks about steering into oncoming traffic._ It’s not an intent to do it. Just an awareness that you _could._ _Or at least that’s what he tells himself as his knife closes on the white wire instead._

_ But of course it’s never that easy. He’s just walking past a bank of windows toward the door when he hears the screech of tires, and three cars with headlights off, the only indication that they’re there the smell of burned rubber and the street lights shimmering on dark metal, pull up in front of him.  _

Meridas weren’t content to count on the bomb to kill me. They left backup. _ He watches three men get out of each of the cars, knowing there’s a fourth behind each wheel. All of them are silhouettes against the night, aside from the glimmer of gunmetal in their hands.  _

_ Mac doesn’t wait around to let them shoot him. They haven’t seen him yet, and he’s glad he’s moving more slowly than usual and hadn’t quite gotten to the door. He stumbles toward the back, but then the door flies open and light nearly blinds him. All the cars must have turned on their headlights.  _

_ He dives for cover as shots ring out through the building, and winces when he feels something clip his leg. He huddles behind a support girder, pressing his hands to the wound, mentally calculating the distance to the windows and cursing the fact that this building is completely empty aside from the bomb… _

_ The bomb. These guys can’t just shoot up a building with a pretty unstable explosive device in the middle of it, unless they’re total idiots. And now that he thinks about it, the gunfire has died off, it’s just the ringing in his ears that’s still there. They lost visual of him. So they can’t shoot until they see him again, or they’ll blow themselves up too. There was enough there to take out the whole warehouse…  _

_ Mac has an idea. A really, really stupid one, but an idea. He can see the bomb. Off to his left; if he runs fast and stays low maybe he can get close enough to it before they see him that shooting will be a risk.   _

_ He looks down at his bleeding leg and hopes he’s capable of running. His entire plan depends on him being fast enough to get that bomb and then get to a door before these guys recover from the surprise of it all and come up with another plan to stop him.  _

_ He hears the footsteps coming closer, and he knows he has seconds left before they find his hiding place and none of it matters. So he forces his tired, aching body into action, ignoring the throbbing muscles and the white-hot pain of the bullet wound as he dashes toward the bomb. He dives in behind it, taking a moment to breathe and realize he really isn’t dead yet.  _

_ He reaches for the device, picking it up carefully, ignoring the fact that the moonlight now streaming through the window is shining directly on him. He hears the clicks and shouts as every cartel goon in the room turns their guns on him.  _

_ “This bomb I’m holding is big enough to bring down this entire building, and if it catches one stray bullet, it’s gonna do just that. You shoot me now, we all die.” Mac can’t help the nervous gasping laugh that’s shuddering in his throat.  _ Maybe they’re crazy enough to do it.  _ He’s suddenly very aware that he doesn’t want to die, after all.  _

_ The men back off, and Mac edges his way toward the back door, moving as fast as he dares to with his bad leg and the dangerous thing in his hands.  _ If I fall, we all die too. _ He opens the door with one hand, backs out, then sets the bomb down carefully and bolts. His leg feels like it’s on fire, and his breaths burn his throat and lungs. But if he stops, they’ll kill him. _

_ He can hear footsteps and gunshots from behind him, but the alleys are dark and when a bullet takes out one of the few remaining lights, he’s able to turn a corner before the cartel thugs catch up. He huddles behind a dumpster, trying to force his shaky panting to quiet. His breathing is so horribly loud in his own ears, the loudest thing in the world.  _

_ He catches a shaky gasp of air and holds it in, and in the sudden silence he can hear footsteps and shouting. “Necesitamos encontrarlo. Buscar por todos lados,”  one of them shouts. Mac flinches. _

We need to find him. Search everywhere. _ He huddles even further back, hoping the darkness will protect him, praying desperately that the spreading trickle of blood from his leg won’t give him away.  _

_ A pair of boots tramples down the alley in front of him. They stop at the dumpster, and Mac couldn’t breathe even if he wanted to, it feels like there’s an icy hand clamped around his throat.  _ If I breathe, I die. _ The irony makes him want to laugh, even as he hears the man searching for him cursing and using his gun to dig through the trash in the dumpster.  _ Usually, it’s the other way round.

_ The man starts to bend down, Mac can see it in the way his legs move, and he freezes. It’s over. He’s going to die.  _ And maybe that’s not the worst thing that can happen.

_ And then something sneezes, at the other end of the alley. Maybe a stray cat or dog. Mac hopes not a homeless person. Whatever it is, it distracts the goon, and he runs off toward it, boots pounding. Mac hears a scuffle of sound as whatever it is bolts, and the footsteps eventually fade out altogether.  _

_ Mac leans against the wall, dragging in a shaky breath. Sadly, this isn’t even close to the first time he’s been pretty sure his life is about to be over. And it’s becoming a more and more frequent occurrence. He’s exhausted, wounded, and feels like he’s fighting a never-ending battle.  _

_ Being a vigilante didn’t used to feel like this. Not when he had Pena beside him and Boze watching his back. But now Pena’s dead, _ because of me, that’s on me, _ and he can’t bear the thought of somehow endangering Bozer as well.  _

_ Alone is safer. At least if something happens now, Mac is the only one who can be hurt. He can live with that. _ That’s irony for you. “Can live with it”; what a joke, I’d be dead. 

_ He should get out of here before that goon comes back, get somewhere and take a look at his leg. He can already tell it’s a graze, but he might need Carlos’s help stitching it up.  _

_ He stands up, then wobbles, catching himself with a hand on the filthy side of the dumpster. He doesn’t understand why everything looks blurry, or why his side feels hot. And then he looks down and sees the slick wetness on his dark sweatshirt. They didn’t just hit him in the leg. He shudders.  _

_ Alone is safe. But it hurts. _

* * *

Riley’s laughing with Linsey about Sam’s apparently completely natural affinity for placing fake spiders in disturbing places, when Matty pushes the door open. Her face is strained, but Riley can tell she’s trying to act calm for Linsey’s sake. “Riley, can I talk to you?”

Riley nods and stands up, walking out to the waiting room. “What is it, Matty?”

“Bozer just called. Apparently Mac stopped at his house to pick something up and now he and Jack are trapped inside with a bomb.” 

“Murdoc?” Riley asks, even though it’s not really his style.

“We don’t know. Right now, that’s all we know.” Riley nods. “I’m going over to supervise, I’ve alerted LAPD and FBI to the situation.” Riley frowns. “I made sure to vet the FBI agents to ensure they had no connections to Dryer.” 

“Sounds good. Let’s go.” 

By the time they arrive at the house, LAPD and FBI vehicles are already setting up a perimeter. Matty, as usual, immediately takes charge. “I’m sure you’re all slightly confused, so allow me to set things straight. As of right now, this is a need to know situation, and you all need to know.” She straightens up. “I am the head of a clandestine US government agency, There are two government operatives inside that house, and their lives are at stake.”

The LAPD sergeant glances at the tablet in his hand. “I’m seeing that this house belongs to one Angus MacGyver, formerly convicted for domestic terrorism with a bombing, then acquitted. Slipped through our fingers just a couple days ago on another murder rap, but it looks like he wasn’t as innocent as he claimed after all. Your people stumble onto his handiwork?”

Riley feels a burning anger bubbling up in her chest, but Matty beats her to the punch. “Angus MacGyver is one of our most valuable agents and one of the ones I am trying to save right now. So I suggest you start submitting applications to some mall security companies, because your career in the LAPD just ended today.” 

The man steps back, gaping, and Matty smiles, like she’s in the business of destroying people before breakfast. Really, she is. Riley wishes she had half that intimidation factor. 

“I want this entire neighborhood blocked off and evacuated. LAPD, you're in charge of road closures. FBI, you're spearheading the evac. I want a perimeter set up around the house. Minimum safe distance, 100 feet. People, I nearly lost one agent yesterday, I am not losing two today. Now  _ move _ .” There’s no arguing with that voice.

Riley sees Bozer standing next to one of the police cars and walks up.  _ He looks like he was dragged through a keyhole. _ It’s been a long couple of days. “What do we know?”

“Neighbors said they saw a repair truck there, for the door. It seemed completely legitimate to them.” 

Riley pulls up the images from the cams. “There’s a vehicle entering at seven am, leaving at nine.  _ Siler Brothers Door and Window _ .”

“Those are the repairmen I called for the door,” Bozer says, scrolling through his phone. “Their site said they did emergency repairs on weekends and holidays, and that they could do rush jobs.”

“That’s great, but Bozer, this vehicle was reported stolen at 8:30, by a man who claimed to be the driver and an employee, a David Cooper. He was found by a family who’d pulled over for a flat, tied up in a ditch in his underwear. Said someone tricked him into stopping with a car that had smoke coming from under the hood, then bashed him over the head and took his uniform and truck.” Having that permanent backdoor into the LAPD files is coming in handy a lot lately. 

“Guessing he didn’t get a good look at the face.”

“Actually he did. Said the guy had a hood on, but he had some pretty freaky scars.”  She lets out a shaky breath. “It sounds an awful lot like the description of the Ghost we got last year.”

“You mean Pena,” Bozer says dully. “I can’t believe he’s doing this.”  _ Mac must have told him everything. _ “I only met him a couple times, but I never thought he’d be capable of this kind of crazy. He seemed so normal. Well, as normal as anyone who hangs out with Mac can be.”

“Whatever happened in that blast everyone thought killed him, it changed him. The real Alfred Pena did die that night. What’s left is the Ghost.” It’s why even though they have a name, Riley still refers to the man with his codename.  _ Alfred Pena was a hero. He doesn’t deserve to have his reputation dragged through the mud like this. _ Not even if the Ghost has done absolutely unthinkable things. 

“He waylaid the driver and used that as cover. It was the perfect setup.” Riley sighs.  _ Either the Ghost just got really lucky, or he was waiting around for an opportunity like this. _

“I’m gonna go tell Mac. He might have already figured it out, but…” 

“We can at least confirm it. And knowing who he’s dealing with might help him disarm the bomb.” Riley was afraid this was La Ola revenge for the death of Morelas.  _ Unless maybe the Ghost is working for them. _ It doesn’t really matter, though. What matters is Mac and Jack getting out of this alive.

Bozer comes running back from the house out of breath. “Wait! Back! Everyone needs to get back!” 

Matty stares at him. “Bozer, what are you talking about? You told me on the phone that Mac set the perimeter at 100 feet.”

“For people, yes. 100 feet, but until Mac knows more about the bomb itself, no cell phones, radios or wireless devices of any kind can be used within 200 feet. Right now, anything could be a trigger.” Bozer leans over, hands on his knees, panting. 

Matty doesn’t even bat an eyelash at the change. “Okay, new orders, people. All radios, cell phones and computers back up an additional hundred feet. 200 foot minimum for tech.”

“I guess this explains why you called from the landline at the neighbor's house,” Riley says. 

“Mac would've called you himself, but apparently this Ghost guy cut our phone line, our cable and our ethernet. Anything Mac could use to communicate.” 

“So now what? You run back and forth?” Riley asks. 

“Till we think of something better.” Bozer straightens up. “Anyone got a Gatorade?” 

* * *

JACK’S ALWAYS FIGURED THIS HOUSE IS GOING TO BLOW UP ONE DAY

HE JUST EXPECTED MAC TO BE RESPONSIBLE

“First, Murdoc, now Casper the Unfriendly Ghost. You know, I'm starting to feel like we're making too many psychotic enemies.” Jack frowns. 

“I can’t believe he’s doing this to me,” Mac whispers. He’s leaning on the countertop, fiddling with a paperclip that doesn’t seem to have any defined shape right now. 

“Mac, he doesn’t remember you.”

“I know.” But still, Jack can imagine that on top of the James disaster, Mac’s former mentor trying to kill him stings. “But to go through all this…”

“You stopped him in LA last year. He probably wants revenge.” Jack shrugs. “But you beat him then, and you’re gonna be able to beat him now.” He shakes his head. “Man, I can’t believe he used that fancy dancy security system of Matty’s to set this all up. I’m starting to think you need to find some new digs.” 

“It was my grandpa's house. And the mortgage is paid off.” Mac shrugs. Jack realizes that to someone like him, that stability’s a big deal.  _ All the upheaval in his life, he wants something he can hold onto.  _ Whether that’s the stability of a team who will always have his back, or just a permanent home to come back to at the end of the day. 

“So you’d stay even if it was haunted? Man, I’m telling you, there’s weird sounds that come through the floor.”  _ Get him on a rabbit trail.  _ It’s basically second nature by now to know how to deal with Mac in a spiral like that.  _ I hate that there’s reason for them to happen that often, though. _

“That’s because there’s a basement and sometimes mice and squirrels get in. My house is not haunted. And anyway, statistically speaking, coincidences are inevitable.” That sounds more like the Mac Jack knows. As long as he’s using words with more than three syllables, he’s going to be fine. 

“Well, you and your statistically inevitable coincidences want to figure out a way to get us outta this house before it’s  _ our _ ghosts haunting it?”

“Jack, if that bomb does go off, you know there won’t be anything  _ to _ haunt, right?” Mac chuckles. 

“So, let me get this straight. We're stuck in here and unless we want to shout at Bozer through that door all day and watch him run up and down that hill, which is honestly very satisfying, there's no way to communicate with the outside world at all?”

“I told him not to come back up here. I don’t know if the bomb is on a timer or not,” Mac says. “I don’t want him anywhere near it.” 

He pulls out his knife and starts taking apart the light switch by the door. “Whoa, how do you know that’s not connected to the bomb too?” Jack asks. 

“That’s what I’m checking.” Mac shines the tiny light on his knife into the hole. “Nope, all clear. No wires, no triggers.” He starts flicking the light on and off.

“Oh, hey, I see what you’re doing now.”  _ Morse code. _ “But you know there’s no guarantee they’re gonna notice it right away, right? So don’t send a message until you’re sure they’re watching.” 

“Yeah, I know. I’m just sending the same thing over and over, there’s no way to know when they’ll realize what’s happening, since they can’t talk to us,” Mac says. 

“I could do sign language. Out the window.” Jack nods toward the glass. “Riley knows ASL.”

“Jack, I’ve seen you doing that on missions. If you get as enthusiastic as usual, you’ll hit the glass by mistake and we’ll both get blown up.” 

“Well, you got a better idea, hoss? Cause Morse Code with the porch light is gonna take all day.” 

“Actually, I do.” Mac grins. “We just need to let everyone know we’re gonna do it.” 

“So what’s this great idea of yours?”

“It’s called a photophone. Uses light to transmit sound. They're pretty straightforward. I'll show you.”  _ Man, I love it when he gets nerdy. _ Jack still thinks the kid would have made one heck of a teacher.  _ I mean, he can make  _ me _ learn stuff, and getting science through Jack Dalton’s thick skull was always apparently a challenge.  _ He’s not sure whether he’s the reason Mrs. Mercer quit, citing a mental breakdown, halfway through his junior year. He realizes Mac’s still talking. “Can you grab me that boom box right there?” 

“Hmm?”

“The boombox.” Mac points to the counter.  

“Pretty sad excuse for a boom box, but here you go.” Jack hands it to him and bends down watching Mac take apart the radio, light switch, and a couple other random things he’s pulled out of the literal junk drawer in the kitchen. Jack thinks he saw one of his old phones in there.

Several minutes, and one half-incomprehensible science lecture later, Mac hands Jack a microphone. “Here. Start talking. I need to test it.”

“What do you want me to do?” Jack glances at the microphone. “I don’t want to break it.”

“You won’t. Just start talking.”

“What do you want me to say?”

Mac throws his hands in the air in exasperation. “Doesn't matter. Anything you want.”

_ Oh, you’re definitely going to regret that... _

* * *

Bozer can’t believe this.  _ It’s not fair. Mac doesn’t deserve any of this.  _ He didn’t deserve to be arrested and dragged down to the police station for someone else’s crime, he definitely doesn’t deserve to be blaming himself for what happened to Cage, and he doesn’t deserve to be trapped in that house with a bomb.  _ Why is the world so cruel to the kindest, best person in it? _ Bozer’s heart feels like it’s twisting. He’d be the first to say his own life was far from perfect, with the grief and disappointment he’s lived with for years, but he hates that Mac has suffered anything at all.

He looks up at the house, blinking through the sheen of tears over his eyes. And then he blinks again, because his eyes are clear but that light is still flickering.  _ What.. _ .

He asks, just to be sure that his eyes aren’t still playing tricks on him.“Matty, Riley, is something going on with Mac's porch light?” 

Riley looks up. “It's Morse code. He's talking to us.” She starts typing frantically. 

Bozer stares over her shoulder. “This is taking too long. We're never gonna be able to help Mac disarm the bomb talking one letter at a time.”

“Actually, Mac must be thinking the same thing, because his message is ‘photophone.’ Does ‘photophone’ mean anything to you?” Riley asks. Bozer just shakes his head. That’s not one of the things he’s built with Mac. “Well, I guess the internet's about to teach me something.” She types away, scanning the pages popping up. “Okay. A photophone is an early telecommunications device invented by Alexander Graham Bell. It uses light rather than electronic signals to transmit sound, just like fiber optics.”

“Like Mac's porch light. Looks like Mac wants us to build one of these photophones. Does it say what we need?” 

“Yeah.” Riley frowns, her forehead wrinkling slightly. “A photoresistor, a photodiode, or a phototransistor.” Her nose twitches in confusion. 

“And those are all different things?” Matty asks. 

“I guess so. This says what we're really after is a light sensor. All three of those objects contain one.” 

That, Bozer can help with. “The Hendersons just installed solar garden lights that automatically come on when the sun goes down. Would one of those work?” Riley nods.

“Get one. Quickly.” He pulls one up, making a mental note to let them know and pay for the damages. He’s used to that when it comes to working with Mac.

He hands Riley the device and watches her tear it apart. She’s no Mac, but she is a tech nerd, and he’s sure they’re in safe hands. “How we doing?” He asks as she finishes connecting some wires to her rig.  Mac’s light is doing a weird flickering thing now, Bozer’s pretty sure Mac’s photophone is already transmitting. 

“Nearly there. We're all wired up. I'm just finishing coding a program to convert that flickering light into sound.” 

Static crackles, and then Jack’s voice comes through, horribly off key and extremely loud. “My, my music hits me so hard, Makes me say "Oh, my...” 

Bozer flinches, covering his ears. “I don't think Jack knows we can hear him.”

Matty smirks. “Are you sure? I mean, it is Jack that we're talking about.” But she’s wincing at the racket as well. “Riley, please tell him to shut up.”

Riley groans. “Unfortunately, I can't. We still need to build our transmitter.”

“Build it quickly.  _ Please. _ ” Matty walks away. 

Riley reaches up and snaps the cover off the police car’s lights. Bozer yelps. “What are you doing?”

“I need a light.” She shrugs.

“That’s destruction of government property!”

“So they can sue me later.” She winks at him. “I’ve never been much of a rule follower.” He’s honestly surprised, at times like this, that she didn’t end up in prison like Mac.  _ Guess an agency got to her a little sooner. _ He wishes they’d been able to save Mac those two years of misery, too.  _ I guess better late than never.  _

Bozer sits down on the curb, listening to Jack’s humming, punctuated with occasional random snatches of song. “Or the light switch...Or the windows...Or the front door...Or the light switch ...Or the windows…” This is getting real old, real fast. He’s just hoping Mac’s surviving.  _ We might not have to worry about a bomb, Jack’s bad karaoke’ll kill him first.  _

“Mac? Jack? Can you hear me? Hey, guys. Hey.” Riley’s voice is getting louder, clearly nothing is audible over Jack’s singing. 

“Hammer time!” Jack shouts, and then in the split second of silence, Matty yells with every bit of force Bozer has ever heard her use. “Dalton!” 

“H-hey, Matty.” 

“Keep it up, and the only hammer you're gonna know is the one I'm gonna hit you with when this is all over.”

“I can't believe it, Matty, but it actually worked. You're talking through the light.” There’s a weird clicking sound and then Mac speaks up, Jack must have handed over the receiver. 

“Matty, it is good to hear your voice.” Mac sounds so incredibly relieved. 

“It's good to hear yours, too. Now talk to me about the bomb. What's going on in there? Are you able to disarm it?” Bozer knows Matty well enough to know she’s panicking on the inside. The random first responders around here would never know, but Boze can see the telltale twitches in her face, and hear the faint tremble in her voice.

“No clue. Setting up comms was step one. But now that we can talk, I'm gonna start looking for the bomb's explosives and detonation circuits.” 

“Mac, please work quickly. There are a lot of nervous people out here, myself included.”

It sounds like Mac’s already left, because it’s Jack who answers. “Don't worry, Matty. Mac's never met a bomb he couldn't defuse. Right, kiddo?”

“And he won’t have to do it alone,” Matty says. “Charlie Robinson is flying out from DC right now. He should be here in less than an hour, I’m sending Riley and Bozer to pick him up right now.”

“You heard the boss, let’s roll,” Riley says, and Bozer follows her to the waiting car. 

* * *

AFGHANISTAN, KONAR PROVINCE

2006

_ “Three more days, Swiss Family Robinson.” Jack chuckles into their comms. “Three more days and we’re outta here.” _

_ “Hell yeah.” Charlie’s voice comes back, tinny and a little distorted. “Three more days and I can say goodbye to sweating my ass off and finding sand in every imaginable place and some I wish I didn’t know existed.”  _

_ Jack laughs. “So I guess that’s a hard no to coming back to Texas with me?”  _

_ “Give me a couple months in DC, and I’ll let you know.” Charlie chuckles. Jack’s so damn proud of the kid, he’s going home to an assignment with the FBI studying domestic terrorism bombings.  _

_ He knows, when he shakes Charlie’s hand and sends him off on his flight, that the kid’s going o go off to make his own future, one Jack’s only faintly ever going to be connected to. _ It shouldn’t hurt, but it does. _ He’s been overwatch to five different bomb nerds. And he’s gotten along with all of them, Charlie best, but nothing has ever...clicked.  _

_ Although whatever’s under his feet just did. And very ominously. “H-hey Swiss? I think I found that bomb we were looking for.” He can hear something beeping. A countdown just started.  _

_ “Hold on, I’ll be right there.” He can hear boots clumping on the stairs. “Nice job, Dalton. Put your foot in it as usual.” He chuckles. _

_ “Spare a dying man the puns, Charlie, please.” Jack groans. _

_ “Ah, come on, you’re not dying yet.” Charlie bends down next to the bomb. “Besides, puns are always your fault.” Jack knows, he did start this. Six months ago when he first met Charlie. Since then, they’ve been blown up, almost captured by the Taliban, and gotten trampled by a herd of goats (it’s a long story). Jack’s as close with Charlie as he is with any of the Delta team, he’s even given the kid a stupid nickname, which with Jack is a kind of show of affection in itself. But there’s still something missing.  _

_ He knows, even as he watches Charlie snip the wires and give him a wink, that they’re not a permanent team. He can feel it in the way they laugh, in the way they talk, in the way they work together.  _ Charlie and I are friends. Always will be. Friendship galvanized in combat is a powerful thing. _ He trusts this man to always have his back no matter what, in the Sandbox and out of it. But he knows there’s something that just isn’t there. That stubborn little hole in Jack’s heart that refuses to be filled.  _

_ He tries not to think about it too much. He claps Charlie on the back and congratulates him, thanks him for making sure Jack didn’t get blown to kingdom come with three days left on his tour. He sings Willie Nelson all the way home in the Humvee and watches Charlie cringe and laugh and eventually join in, he knows all the lyrics by now.  _

_ But in three days this is over. No more Humvee karaoke, no more dumb puns. He knows he and Charlie will stay in touch for a while, but inevitably they’ll drift apart, just like he did with his Delta team. He still talks to most of them, sends cards at Christmas if he’s home to do it, and occasionally a letter from over here. But they’ve got lives, all of them. Some are married. One has a kid.  _ It feels like now I’m not the same kind of family I was to them then. _ Now they have families of their own, and then there’s Jack. Never able to settle down, never able to find something permanent. _

_ He values the permanence of the important things in life more than he’ll admit. The family ranch that’s been in Dalton hands for generations. The family that will be on the porch when he goes home in three days. He guesses that will have to be enough for him right now.  _

_ Deacon sent him a picture of him and his baby girl, a couple weeks ago, and at the thought of that precious little kid, Jack’s heart twists in his chest again.  _ I don’t have the kind of life where you settle down and have a white picket fence. _ This is where he belongs, what he’s good at. _

_ A wife and kids isn’t in the cards for a man like him. Or at least he’s got no reason to hope for it. It wouldn’t be fair to them to have him gone for weeks or maybe even months at a time, or to have a whole piece of who he is that they can never know about.  _

_ Being overwatch for these fresh-out-of-college bomb nerds might be the closest Jack will ever come to having a kid of his own. But all of them still have real families back home, and no matter how much Jack fills a parental role over here, right now, that’s not how it’s going to be when they go home. And that’s harder to accept than it should be.  _

You have blood on your hands. Maybe you don’t deserve to raise a kid, after all. _ It hurts more than he’ll admit to think that. How can hands that have slit a man’s throat also check a fever on a child’s forehead? How can someone who’s spent their life making a living off ending lives be trusted to nurture one?  _

_ He shakes his head, pushing the dark thoughts away to the furthest corners of his mind. Right now he has three days left with a good friend. He’s going to enjoy them. And hopefully not get blown to kingdom come.  _

_ He sees the fresh dirt a second too late. Tires skid, he yells Charlie’s name and throws his arm out to brace him, and then there’s nothing but heat and light and the smell of scorching earth, and Charlie’s horrified face as the blast slams the undercarriage and throws them onto his side of the vehicle.  _

_ Jack comes to, blinking dust and ash out of his eyes. His left leg aches, and when he looks down he sees that there’s a bleeding gash across it. He’s not pinned, but his leg must have slammed into the dash. His head aches, but he’s mostly still in one piece. They caught a glancing blow, the blast flipped them instead of exploding under the vehicle. Jack shakes his head again, his vision is red. He swipes at his face, and his whole glove comes away tinted a rusty tone. It takes a moment to realize that it’s a glass cut on his cheek dripping blood across his face and into his eye.  _

_ “Swiss?” He coughs out. There’s no reply. “Charlie?” He reaches across the vehicle until he feels Charlie’s arm. “Hey, man, come on, answer me.” His breath catches in his throat.  _ Three days. Three damn days till that kid walked outta this hellhole. _ He can’t be dead. He can’t be. It would be too unfair. Too unfair even for a world that Jack knows all too well has never been fair.  _

_ Charlie coughs, then drags in a rough breath. “Hey Jack.” _

_ “Damage report?” Jack asks. _

_ “Landed on my right arm. Think it’s a fracture. Probably got a concussion too.” HIs voice sounds slurred, so Jack’s inclined to agree with his self-diagnosis. It could have been a lot worse. He hopes there aren’t any massive internal injuries.  _ Can we just have something work out for once?

_ “Cool. let’s get out of here.” Jack doesn’t know if someone’s going to come along to see what their little bomb trap caught, and he’d like to be in a defensible position before then. He kicks his door open, then helps Charlie out, draping his tech’s good arm around his shoulders and limping toward a rocky outcropping, feeling for the radio at his belt. At least it’s still in one piece. Maybe they’ll actually have decent luck for once.  _ Pretty sad when getting blown up can still count as good luck. 

_ The sun’s setting, but it’s still hot enough that Jack wishes there was more than a quarter of a canteen of water left between the two of them. He’s sweating like a horse, despite his lifelong familiarity with desert heat; there’s a difference between being out on the ranch in jeans and a t-shirt and being out here in full uniform and gear.  _

_ There’s no sign of hostiles, and Jack hopes that they’ve assumed the bomb was enough to take someone out. But there’s no sense taking chances. He watches the area with his rifle at the ready until he hears the thwap of chopper blades and sees their medevac inbound. He glances at Charlie and grins. “Ready to go home?” _

_ “Am I ever.” Charlie gives him a dopey, half-aware grin, and Jack smiles.  _

_ He forces the smile to stay until he and Charlie are separated in the medical tent, and Charlie’s flown out to a hospital for surgery while Jack’s own leg is simply cleaned and wrapped. He gives the tech a final goodbye wave, then sinks back onto his own cot.  _

_ Five EOD techs are going home alive because of him. He should feel proud. But there’s only a creeping sense of loss.  _ This is why you’re not supposed to get attached to anyone. _ Saying goodbye to Charlie is the hardest send-off since the Deltas split up. Suddenly Jack hates how transient his life is. People come and people go, and he’s lucky if he ever sees them again. He really hopes that changes, and soon. He’s not sure how many more goodbyes he has in him.  _

* * *

LOS ANGELES

RILEY REALLY WISHES CHARLIE COULD COME HERE FOR SOMETHING OTHER THAN A DEADLY EXPLOSIVE THREAT

“Charlie, thanks for coming so fast.”

“Are you kidding me? When I heard The Ghost was back, I hitched a ride on a Air Force T-38.” Charlie leans forward. “How's Jack?” 

Bozer laughs. “Still in one piece. And last I heard he was singing karaoke, so…”

“So we should be less worried about the bomb and more worried about our eardrums?” Charlie asks. Riley grins into the rearview. 

“Here, you can talk to him.” She’s wired the photophone to feed through their phones, and she hands hers back to Charlie, never taking her eyes off the road.  _ I forgot it’s the day after Christmas. Holiday traffic sucks.  _

“Hey Jack,” Charlie’s voice sounds forcedly cheerful. “I hear you’re subjecting them all to that same ear torture from the Humvee.”

“Ear torture? I will have you know that I’m the karaoke champion…”

“in four states, one Chinese province, and three small European countries. We know,” Riley echoes as Jack rattles off his familiar insistent defense. “How is Mac coming on the bomb?”

“Well, Mac’s building some of his weird-ass doohickeys, so I’m gonna say that’s a good sign.” 

“It’s not a doohickey,” Mac grumbles. “It’s a...fine. You can call it a doohickey. And it’s gonna help us find the actual bomb.” 

“Okay, Mac, what is it you’re building?” Charlie asks. “Personally, I’m going to want a little more specifics than doohickey.”

“Well, basically, I’m using a TV remote to improvise a device that’s going to detect the electromagnetic field given off by AC current traveling along wires, trace the wires from the trigger in the alarm system back to the bomb itself. If I want to find the bomb's logic board,” Riley can almost see Jack’s patented confused stare, and it’s confirmed when Mac speaks up again, “The part I got to disarm if we want to live, I’m gonna have to trace the wires back to their source.”

She can almost see Jack leaning over to see what Mac’s doing, then pulling back, trying not to invade Mac’s personal space after the trauma of the last couple days. “Glowing red means that I found a wire carrying a voltage.” She can hear footsteps now, and the voices are fainter. 

“And you're sure it's working right?” Jack asks, then a fraction of a second later, mumbles, “Sorry.”  _ Mac probably gave him the  _ of-course-I’m-sure-I’m-MacGyver  _ stare. _ That’s actually pretty reassuring at this point.

Then the footsteps stop and Mac’s voice drifts back to them “That's it. Detonator is right there.

“You’re sure?” Charlie asks. 

“Yes. Dark spot, no wires. Jack, hand me that claw hammer.” There’s the sound of boards being torn up, and then a slightly concerned sound from Mac.  _ That’s not great.  _

“Found the bomb.” Mac’s voice is strained. “It’s...um...definitely bigger than I expected. A lot bigger.”

“Ay, Chihuahua,” Jack mutters.  _ This definitely isn’t good.  _

“The Ghost likes to work in sets of three.” Charlie shakes his head. “That can’t be the only device he placed today. We’re looking for two more bombs.” Mac already told them that when he found out who was behind this one, and Matty has LAPD scanning the city.

“Or one.” Riley’s glad she was monitoring police scanner chatter, she was looking for Murdoc but she recorded everything from the past two days anyway. “LAPD bomb squad picked up a small device ten hours ago, outside of City Hall.”

“Right where we found the bomb last year,” Charlie says. “Looks like he was leaving that as a calling card, just in case we didn’t put all the pieces together.” Riley nods. 

“LAPD disarmed it easily and took it in for study. I’ve alerted them to the fact that it may be some kind of Trojan Horse, they’ve put it into a containment room.” As far as they can tell, it has no way to connect it to the other bombs. It’s almost a taunt. “They’re hoping to get your eyes on it.” 

“I think that’s exactly what the Ghost wants. He’s trying to pull attention away from a search for the third device.”

“So you want to join in on the search.” Riley nods. “You’re the expert, can you tell us what we ought to be looking for?”

“The Ghost’s MO is concealing his devices in vehicles. Like that news van last year at the police ceremony.” Charlie frowns. “So, if it’s comparable to the one in Mac’s house, we’re looking at FedEx vans, tractor-trailers, mail trucks, something like that.”

“I’ll relay that to the LAPD teams,” Matty says over the line. “And guys, be careful. Mac said that that bomb you’re looking for is probably powerful enough to wipe out half of downtown.” 

* * *

Jack’s got a tourist map spread out on the counter in front of him, crossing off places as Matty lets him know LAPD has cleared them. “Hey, Matty. Do me a favor and have someone go by and check on Bruce's house,” He says, grinning. He can tell Matty’s stressed by the sound of her voice, and he knows that humor is almost as good at relaxing her as it is for calming Mac down. Almost.

“I'm pretty sure that Bruce Willis isn't on The Ghost's hit list, Jack.” But she’s chuckling just a little anyway. 

“If I'm a bomb-flavored nut bar hatching a terrorist plot, taking out John McClane would be at the top of my to-do list.” 

“That's good to know, Jack. How's Mac on defusing the bomb?” 

Jack turns around to where the kid’s pacing the kitchen, grabbing stuff from the cupboards. “Hey, Mac. Matty wants a progress report.” Mac ignores him completely. “Hey, dude…”

“Stoichiometry. In my head. Can't talk.” Mac’s voice is clipped, and he goes back to pacing, now muttering under his breath as well. 

“Okay, uh Matty, he's kind of going full-blown Bill Nye the Science Guy right now to talk, which in my experience is a good thing.” He watches as a look of satisfaction crosses Mac’s face, and the kid rushes to the stove and starts dumping things in a pot.

“Well, here's hoping. We just cleared the Wilshire Federal Building, and I've got teams in a dozen other locations. I'll keep you posted on what our search turns up.”

“All right.” Jack sets down the mic and walks over to Mac. “Hey, man, you know I have the utmost faith in this weird thing you always do that saves our lives, but one thing I do  _ not  _ have faith in is your cooking.”

“Relax, this is science,” Mac mumbles. “Can't disarm anything until I know exactly what explosive we're dealing with and I haven't been able to I.D. it using any of the usual tests, so, I had to cook up one of my own. I won’t mess this up.”

“Ok, cause the pot of ramen you burned a couple weeks ago says differently. Seriously, who burns noodles in water?” Jack shakes his head. “Sure you don’t want me stirring that? I mean, it’s no Texas Hold ‘Em chili, but…”

Mac snorts. “I’m fine.” But he’s starting to smile, which is a good thing. Kid’s stressed out and overwhelmed. And probably about to crash from low blood sugar, if his suddenly less than coordinated movements are any indication.

“Hey, speaking of food, when that’s done, we should eat.” Jack rummages through the cupboards and fridge. “Hey, if I put these pizza rolls in the microwave, will that set off the bomb?”

“Uh, I’d use the oven to be safe. And sure, go ahead and eat,” Mac says. 

“Um, you too, pal.”

“No time.” Mac’s staring at the slurry in the saucepan with a burning concentration.

“Yes, there is. Look at your hands. You are sleep deprived and sugar low, and only one of those can I do something about, but I do not want you trying to disarm a giant deadly bomb with hands that are doing that.” As if to prove his point, the whisk Mac is using to stir his mixture clatters noisily against the side of the pan. “You are gonna finish cooking up whatever that is, and then you are gonna sit down for five minutes and eat some pizza rolls and drink a soda.” 

“That’s not the healthiest…”

“Healthier than being blown to smithereens because you can’t focus.” Jack shakes his head. “Move over for a sec, let me stick these in the oven.” Mac does, and Jack slides the pan of pizza rolls in. He watches Mac continue to stir while the liquid he’s cooking turns from cloudy to clear, then pour it off into a measuring cup. 

The timer for the pizza rolls buzzes, and Jack grabs a hot mitt and pulls them out, sliding most of them onto a plate for Mac and keeping just a few for himself. He opens a couple bottles of root beer and pushes one into Mac’s hand. “Here. Kiddo, you’re taking a break if I have to pick you up and bodily set you down in a chair.”

“But…”

“No buts. Come on, humor me a little. Guys on death row get a last meal, and if something does go wrong, I at least want to die on a full stomach.” Mac rolls his eyes but sits down, and Jack watches him practically inhale the plate of food. 

“Easy there, hoss, don’t make yourself sick.” He shakes his head. “Bomb’s not on a timer, right? It ain’t goin’ anywhere. And neither are we.” He rests a hand on Mac’s shoulder. “But honestly, all jokes aside? I totally believe you’re capable of disarming that bomb.”

“That makes one of us.” Mac sighs. “I’m not an EOD expert, not like Charlie…”

“Mac, listen. You are the most qualified person in the world to be working on this.” Jack leans down so he can look Mac in the eyes. “You know bombs, and better yet you know the Ghost. There is no one I trust more, okay?” 

Mac nods slowly, then stands up. “Well, then, I guess I better get busy.” He grabs a dishcloth and his cup of chemical stuff and hops through the hole in the floorboards down to where those six giant barrels are sitting deceptively innocently.  _ Damn, how did no one notice this was way more than a simple door repair? _

Jack pokes his head through the hole. “What's going on down there with your bomb soup stuff?” 

“Most explosives are nitrogen-based, so if I can test the Ghost’s explosive to see how much nitrogen it contains, we'll know what we're…” Mac’s working as he talks, running the rag around the top of one of the barrels and dipping it in the measuring cup of liquid. “No, no, no, no, no.” Jack doesn’t like the sound of that at all “I was really hoping that wasn't gonna happen.” Mac pulls himself up through the hole, handing Jack the rag and cup. Jack flinches, the pitch black liquid in there must be a really bad sign. 

Mac picks up the photophone’s mic. “Matty, we have a problem. The Ghost really outdid himself this time. He synthesized cg-N.”

“I'm guessing that's not a cable network.” Jack shakes his head.  _ Oh hell, this is really really bad. _ He may not work with EOD anymore, but he keeps up on the latest in weapons and explosives.  _ Mac always says I’m a nerd about things that can kill me. _ It feels even more necessary now that he works with someone who has a disturbing tendency to blow things up on a regular basis. 

“It's cubic gauche nitrogen. It's a new type of explosive with an energy density of 33 kilojoules per gram, which is three times that of HMX.”

Jack shakes his head. “English, pal. Tell them in English.” 

“Right. The bomb underneath my house is built with the most powerful non-nuclear explosive known to man, which might also explain why we haven't found that second bomb.”

“I'm not following you, Blondie.” Neither is Jack, at this point. But he’s sure Mac knows what he’s talking about. 

“Uh, with an explosive this powerful, The Ghost isn't going to take out one target. He's going for the maximum number of targets he can hit with one bomb. So, if the second bomb is the same size as the one under my house, he could take out half of downtown Los Angeles.”

“Who would pay the Ghost to build a bomb this big?” Matty asks. 

Riley’s voice comes through, crackling and static through the double relay of comms and photophone. “According to the financials I just dug up, the La Ola cartel would.” 

* * *

SOMEWHERE IN LOS ANGELES

2014

_ Jack glances over the top of the newspaper he’s pretending to read. “Riley, I got our guy. Three o’clock. By the dude selling souvenir hats.” He’s good at clocking guys who are up to no good, and this one screams cartel courier. He’s got a La Ola gang tattoo on one shoulder and despite the fact that his t-shirt sleeve is partially covering it, the strap of the duffel bag he has slung over that shoulder has pulled the material up to show it.  _

_ “I got him.” Riley, looking deceptively touristy in a crop top, ripped out skinny jeans, and carrying a string sack full of her gear on her back, wanders up to the man, pulling a map out of the pocket of her jeans. “Excuse me, can you tell me how to get to the subway? This city’s so huge, I’m really lost.” She giggles inanely.  _

_ The man sets down his duffel and smiles at her, a shark-like cold toothy look. Jack can see exactly where his eyes are going, and he wants to knock out some of those teeth. It bothers Jack that guys look at Riley like she’s a piece of meat. But she’s about to kick his ass, so… _

_ “Thank you so much.” She leans over, and then deliberately dumps the iced coffee in her hand onto the duffel bag. “Oh shit, I’m so sorry. I hope I didn’t ruin anything in there.”  _

_ And then the liquid turns from a creamy white and brown to a purplish red, it’s detected the trace amounts of cocaine that sloughed off on the bag. Jack stands up just as the guy looks up at Riley in surprise. He looks even  more shocked when she clocks him in the jaw, flips him on his stomach, and pins his hands behind his back. _

_ Jack hands her a pair of cuffs. “You know, you coulda had your own if you’d agreed to use that fake fanny pack thing the lab made.”  _

_ “Even I have a point where I draw the line,” Riley says. “I  _ did _ agree to wear the shirt with the 70’s band on it.” She tugs at the hem of her AC/DC crop top.  _

_ “They’re  _ still _ popular, you know.” Jack grins. “You just look like you have good music taste.”  _

_ Jack pulls the man to his feet, and the guy stupidly attempts to head-butt Jack and make a run for it. All he succeeds in doing is giving Jack a bloody nose and earning one of his own. “Hey, man, stop struggling. We caught you red-handed.” Jack wrestles the uncooperative man over to their vehicle and shoves him in the back.  _

_ He pulls out his phone and dials the DXS’s main office. “Hey boss, we got him.”  _

_ “Excellent,” Patricia Thornton says, her voice crisp as usual. It’s been five weeks since he and Riley transferred from the CIA and Jack’s still deciding whether this woman has managed to actually outdo Matty for intimidation factor. “Hopefully his information will lead us to the people responsible for that CIA gun shipment theft.”  _

_ “Thanks to the contact numbers on this phone, I might be able to track both his buyers and some of the big-fish sellers.” Riley plugs in a USB and connects it to her laptop.  _

_ Jack leans back on the seat, picks up the half-finished Mountain Dew in the console, and rests the still slightly cool drink against the bridge of his nose. “Seriously. We go from busting international James Bond level baddies to collaring cartel thugs?” Jack asks. “Man, I thought DXS was supposed to be some kinda elite agency. How come DXS is responding to stuff that should be LAPD?” His and Riley’s transfers just got finalized and now they’re getting tossed out to do ops Jack could run in his sleep.  _ Yes, I know we’re the new guys, but still, we have some seniority from the old agency. This is a little much, as far as breaking in the new recruits goes. 

_ Patty sighs. “Apparently LAPD is spread thin trying to deal with this turf war. So they asked for some extra assistance. The FBI field office here is involved as well.” _

_ “What’s with the sudden spike in all this cartel crime anyway?” Jack knows LA sees its fair share of drug trafficking and gun running. But it’s still surprising that they’re asking for the help of government agencies like DXS. Maybe this is just about that gun shipment, but it sure doesn’t feel like it. _

_ “It looks like the cartels have been more active since a vigilante known as the Phoenix was arrested last month for terrorism.” Riley turns her rig so Jack can can see the article. “Angus MacGyver was just sentenced to life in prison for murder and domestic terrorism.” _

_ The name sounds familiar. Jack frowns, then recalls why. When he bought the paper, the headline article was about MacGyver’s sentencing. He picks up the folded sheets from where he tossed them on the console. There’s a courtroom sketch to go along with the article, and Jack shakes his head at the sight of a kid who looks younger than Riley. Whoever did that drawing went out of their way to make him look small and scared and innocent.  _

_ Jack figures that sketch artist’s probably sympathetic to this homegrown vigilante. People like heroes like that. But it doesn’t erase the fact that their friendly neighborhood hero is also a not-so-friendly neighborhood terrorist.  _

_ Jack looks down at his bruised knuckles and thinks of how many cartel busts he’s made since the date of the arrest that’s been published in the article.  _ Kid was doing one hell of a job. Shame he turned out to be a monster too. 

* * *

LOS ANGELES

NOT WIPED OFF THE MAP YET

Bozer really, really hates the idea of a bomb big enough to take out half the city, that could be hidden anywhere. This search was bad enough already. He turns the SUV down a side street, following Charlie’s instructions. Bozer trusts that the man knows what the Ghost would do to maximize the impact of a bomb like the one Mac described. 

“We still think it’s in a vehicle?” He asks.

“Putting it in a building is risky. He was able to put the one in Mac’s basement because no one was home. A vehicle is mobile and in normal LA traffic, easily forgettable.” Charlie shrugs. “It’s what I would do.”

“And now that we know he was paid off by La Ola, we can focus our search on areas controlled by the Meridas and the Los Diablos,” Riley says. “Apparently the Ghost teamed up with someone else who also wanted Mac out of the picture. Guess revenge is best when you also get paid.” 

Bozer’s not seeing anything on the streets aside from the LAPD vehicles that are combing the streets for the bomb as well. And then he notices a flash of red in an alley. A garbage truck. 

“You know what today isn't? Trash day.”

Riley looks up. “Yeah, and the LAPD's pulled all municipal trucks out of downtown. So what's this one doing here?”

They all climb out of the SUV. Riley notifies the LAPD search crews that they’re investigating a potential location for the bomb, but to hold off on backup.  _ Better to keep as many people away from a bomb like this as possible. Besides, we’ve got Charlie.  _

Bozer knows the man was a bomb disposal tech in Afghanistan, but it’s two different things to know that and to see it in action.  _ It’s like watching Jack go into Delta mode on a mission.  _ Charlie is clearly focused on just one thing. The potential bomb. “The ground looks clear. I don't see any triggers on the hopper. Undercarriage is clear, too.” He hops up on the step and glances into the front. “Cab, as well. So, if this truck is hiding a bomb, it's got to be in the back. Which means we have a problem.”

“What problem? Should we start running?” 

Charlie turns and raises an eyebrow. “Bozer, when dealing with bombs, just remember, cool, calm and collected gets us home alive.” _ Clearly, my humor is lost on him. How did Jack survive working with someone who takes everything seriously? _ Or maybe Bozer’s just not as funny as he thinks he is. 

Riley shrugs. “That's what I've been trying to tell him.”

“Oh, like you're not freaking out, too.”

Charlie leans against the back of the truck, Bozer flinches despite the fact that Charlie probably knows what is safe to do around this bomb. “The problem is, I don't know how to work a garbage truck, and if I pull the wrong lever and engage the compactor, we could set the whole bomb off. We need to get somebody down here…”

Bozer steps in, walking up to the hopper controls. “I drove a garbage truck one summer as research for a movie I was making. Trash Men Vs. Zombies.”  _ And it paid for that night class on film techniques too.  _

“Shocked I never saw that one in theaters,” Riley chuckles. 

“You're a hater.” Bozer engages the levers and the back of the truck opens slowly. He hears Riley gasp, and when he steps around to the back he can see why. That’s not six barrels, like Mac described finding in his basement. It’s twelve. 

“I think it's time for you to get on your Hurt Locker suit, Charlie,” Riley says quietly. 

“Device this size? No point. If this thing goes off, it'll just be a waste of a perfectly good bomb disposal suit.” Charlie shrugs. “I don't see any motion sensors or mercury switches, so I don't think it'll go off if I climb inside for a closer look.” He hops up on the back, shaking his head and grimacing when his hand slides on something slimy.  _ Guess the Ghost didn’t bother to hose out this thing before he stuck his bomb in here. _

“Well, I’ll give him props for a smart move using a garbage truck,” Charlie says. Bozer wrinkles his nose. That thing is  _ rank _ . “If they started using dogs to look for this thing, it could easily be passed off as a false alarm. Or the scent could have even been covered up completely.” He traces the wires covering the bomb with his fingers, ending at a grey box. After running his fingers around the edges, he opens it. 

“Well, like the one at the house, it’s not on a timer. That's the good news.”

“If that's the good news, what's the bad news?” Bozer asks. “There is some, right? Besides the big-ass bomb in the middle of LA? 

Charlie’s frown is only getting deeper. “I've never seen half of these components before. And I have no idea what they do.”

* * *

Mac sighs as Matty relays the news from the search crews. “We found the second bomb downtown. Charlie is starting to disarm it now. Unfortunately, he says it's even bigger than yours.”

Jack leans in, shaking his head. “Oh, come on, now, Matty. It's not a competition, all right?” He rolls his eyes. “Really?” 

Mac grabs the toolbox off the counter, he’s added a few more random things he thinks might help, then hurries over to the giant hole in his floor. He’s almost accidentally stepped in it twice while rushing around getting the things he needs.  _ Can’t afford to be klutzy today, Mac. _ He tries not to think about how much like Pena that particular little reminder sounds.  _ He would want me to stop this bomb. He would want me to stop _ him.

Jack joins him at the edge of the opening. “Mac, any idea how long it's gonna take you to disarm the one in there?” 

He shrugs. “Hopefully not too long.” The sugar and caffeine in his body are only going to do so much. He’s exhausted, and he knows the longer this takes the more debilitating that’s going to become. 

“Yeah, but between me and you, you know you can disarm that bad boy way quicker than Charlie can disarm his bomb.”

“Thought it  _ wasn't _ a competition.” Mac drops down into the hole and turns to the bomb. 

“Well, no, no. It's not. It's a team effort. Speaking of which, what can I do to help?”

“Uh...pray.” He pulls the cover off the bomb’s control center and glances at the wires running through it.  _ Okay, think. There’s enough of Pena left that it influences how he builds his devices.  _ Mac certainly heard the man criticize sloppy cartel work often enough.  _ “Angus, a well made bomb is a challenge. These piles of trash are just an insult.”  _ Pena would never use an easy build. So the obvious solution will be the wrong one.  _ But what if he remembers enough about me to know that I know that, so he makes the obvious wire the right one, to fool me? _ Mac leans back, wiping sweat off his forehead. He’s overthinking it, as usual. And then the bomb starts clicking and beeping and the glowing lights change from blue to red. 

“What happened?! What'd you do?” Jack yells down. 

“I didn't do  _ anything _ . It just started doing that all by itself!” Mac forgot one very essential thing about Pena.  _ Never overlook anything about a situation.   _ “Jack! Tell Matty Charlie needs to stop!”

He hears Jack yelling, and then a second later the man sticks his head back down the hole. “You got one real confused bomb nerd out there, kiddo. What the hell is going on?”

“The bombs, they're connected. Two separate devices linked by wireless receivers. Disable one, it triggers the other.”

“So if he had just disarmed the bomb in the truck, then he would've set the one off under the house.” Jack groans. “Man, this Ghost is really starting to piss me off.” Mac hears a soft thump behind him, and when he turns around, Jack’s there. He puts a hand on Mac’s shoulder, a steady, warm, reassuring presence. “We’re gonna figure this out, Mac. Okay?”

Mac nods.  _ I can do this. I have to. _ He looks up at Jack, fingers instinctively finding the dog tags under his shirt.  _ We can do this. _

* * *

CALIFORNIA CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION

2016

_ Mac has three days left in solitary _ . _ He’s already planning a way to get himself back in. The guards have him labeled a risk, now; they’re more than willing to punish him for another infraction. He’s made himself known for starting fights over the pettiest things, fights serious enough to land him back here over and over. It shouldn’t be too hard to start another one. There’s no shortage of short tempers in prison. _

_ He just hopes he can do it before La Ola comes knocking. They’re getting angry, the last time he got out of solitary, Lobo threatened that if he didn’t shape up he wouldn’t be useful to the cartel any longer. And reinforced that threat with the makeshift shiv he was brandishing in Mac’s face.  _ Would it really be that bad? To just have it all stop? To say no and deal with the consequences?

_ The pounding on his cell door, and the rattle of the lock opening, shake him out of his head and back into the real world. “MacGyver. You’ve got visitors.”  _

_ That can’t be right. He’s not allowed to see anyone when he’s in solitary. But a guard is walking in with a set of wrist and ankle manacles. He stands quietly while they chain him up. He’s gotten used to the feeling; and at this point it’s hardly the most humiliating thing about his life.  _

_ “What’s he getting taken out early for?” The guard at the end of the cell block asks as Mac walks up. It’s hard to hear his voice over the clink and clatter of the chains. Mac’s used to people talking like he’s not even there.  _ I’m not a person, I’m just a case file and an inmate number. Or a bargaining chip.  _ He tries not to think about that. _

_ “Some government people showed up. Started flashing black ops clearances around and had paperwork enough for a small army. No one was gonna argue with people like that.”  _ Oh no. _ Mac’s been afraid of this since he heard that terrorism was part of his charges. They’re coming to drag him off to some black hole of a prison and interrogate him. He shivers. He’s heard stories of what they do at places like Guantanamo.  _

I didn’t do it, at least I didn’t mean to kill anyone. But they’ll never believe me. _ He feels sick. He’s going to spend the rest of his probably pretty short life being interrogated for information he doesn’t have. And no one will believe he’s not just being stubborn and holding out.  _

_ He wonders if it’ll be worse than the life he’s living now. He doesn’t see how it could be.  _

_ He flinches when he’s dragged away again, down the hall to one of the interview rooms, his footsteps echoing eerily in the cold hallway. His wrists are snapped into the cuffs on the table, and the door slams behind him, and he’s alone.  _

_ He leans his elbows on the table, runs his hands down his face, and sighs, resting his forehead on the hands folded in front of him. This is it. He doesn’t know what this delay is about, but eventually those government people are going to come and take him away.  _

_ The door opens, and two people step in, a man and a woman. The man, clearly the senior agent, takes a seat at the table across from Mac, but the woman, who doesn’t look much older than Mac himself, steps into one of the corners, half hidden in the dark. Her black leather jacket and curly dark hair fade into the shadows, and all Mac can really see are her eyes and the pastel-lacquered fingernails drumming on her arm. _

_ Neither of these people look like what he was expecting.  _ Government agency, I was assuming either suits or full tactical gear.  _ The man in front of him looks deceptively normal, aside from the short mohawk in his grey-flecked hair and the leather cuff on his wrist. But there’s nothing normal, or safe, in his eyes. Mac knows a soldier when he sees one.  _

_ He isn’t going to let them see that he’s scared. He won’t give them the satisfaction. Not even if it makes everything worse. He’s been humiliated enough, he’s not going to go off to a painful, horrible death sniveling like a lost child.  _

_ “Angus MacGyver,” the man drawls in a thick Texas accent, with an emphasis on the first name. “Sounds like a new special at Carl’s Jr.” Mac flinches. It’s not the worst he’s heard, though, not by far.  _ Have they started using terrible jokes as interrogation tactics now? _ “How’d you survive in here for two years with a hamburger name like that?” _

_ “Solitary’s real good for keeping you alive.”  _

_ “I heard you like being alone.” The man spreads out Mac’s LAPD file. Mac glances at it, this guy clearly doesn’t know as much about him as he wants to pretend to. He’s left the paperclip holding the mug shot in place within easy reach of Mac’s fingers. _ But maybe he’s testing me.  _ Mac looks down quickly, not willing to draw attention to the paperclip. If he acts like he’s not interested, like it’s not at all important to him, maybe he can palm it. Although what he’s going to do with it if he does get it he’s not sure. _ I don’t deserve to be a free man, not after what happened to Ramsay.  _ Not even if he really, really wants to avoid getting sent to whatever black hole these people are here to take him to.  _ _ “Looks like you liked working alone, too.” _

_ The man spreads out the crime scene photos. Mac already know what they show. He doesn’t have to look. _

_ The girl standing in the corner walks over and leans on the table. “I heard about you, for a while, when I was monitoring dark web chatter,” she says. “They called you the Phoenix.” _

_ “I wasn’t a hero, if that’s what you think. I did what had to be done.” _

_ “You were a vigilante. And you sure as hell had a code. At least until that gun warehouse you blew dropped on the maintenance guy.” Mac flinches. They’re not beating around the bush. They’re going to tell him now, what it is that’s waiting for him. How he’s going to be punished for that. But Mac refuses to go quietly. His breath is roaring in his ears, the man is still talking but Mac can only see his lips moving. But he’s not going to let them break him.   _

_ Mac meets the man’s eyes. He’s not what they call him. He’s not a cold blooded killer, and he will defend  _ that _ until his dying breath. “I thought the building was clear. I swear. I didn’t mean for anyone to get killed.” _

_ “We believe you,” the girl says. Mac blinks. _ Did I just hear that right?  _ He can’t have. No one believes him. Especially not people like this. _

_ The girl is still talking. “The people we work for have looked over the case again. They think there might be evidence to prove your bomb didn’t kill George Ramsay.” _

_ “It wasn’t my fault?” He can’t believe what he’s hearing. He’s spent two years in this hell because he was a killer, he deserved it. But if he’s actually not...It seems too good to be true. Like this can’t really be happening. _ I’m going to wake up. I’m dreaming.  _ They can’t possibly be telling him he was innocent. _

_ Almost unconsciously, his fingers slide across the table and remove the paperclip from the folder.  _

_ “Hold on, Hoss, we said maybe.” The man looks at him, and Mac can see deep distrust there. “And…we have some conditions.” _

_ “I thought so. No one does any good deed for free.” He’s not ready to blindly trust. In his experience, offers of help that comes with strings attached don’t work out so well for him. He doubts these people want what La Ola did, but they might want something else awful.  _

_ “You used to,” the girl says. _

_ “And look what it got me.” Mac laughs sarcastically. “I thought it was helping.” _

_ “By taking out gangs like the ones who killed your best friend’s brother.” The man frowns, and Mac wonders why on earth they’ve gone to all this trouble, why they know so much about him. They can’t be here out of the goodness of their hearts. Even if they’re not taking him off to a prison that doesn’t legally exist. “Yeah, we did more digging than some minimum-wage cops could be bothered to. Seems like you started all this when Jeremiah Bozer was caught in the crossfire of two rival gangs downtown. He was just on his way to a coffee house cover band gig with his friends. Fifteen years old.”  _

_ Mac stares down at the picture that’s slid across toward him. He remembers that day. He’d give anything to go back there and change everything. To undo the past six years. “Wanted to be a rockstar, just like his brother wanted to make movies, and you wanted to go to MIT.”  _ Oh God, they know about Bozer. _ He can’t have him dragged into this. He’s done what he’s done to protect Boze from any suspicion of involvement. If they use Bozer to try and force him to cooperate... _

_ He looks up at this man, determined to tell the same story he’s told a hundred times. “Cops tried to help, but the gangs have people in their pockets, and there are too many laws that stop the police from getting the information they need. There’s too much red tape. Things take too long. I can get them done fast and save lives.” He sighs. “Until one day I couldn’t.” _

_ “We want to give you the chance to do that again,” the girl says. “We’ll help you prove your innocence. On one condition. Once you’re out, we’d like you to consider our employment offer. We’re a dark agency, US government but working under a cover. No one knows we exist. We operate at our discretion across the globe. And right now, we have a problem.” _

_ “What kind of problem?” Mac really doesn’t like the sound of this. He thought this kind of thing only happened in Bozer’s B-grade spy movie scripts.  _ Real agencies don’t recruit criminals. Especially not terrorists. Right?

_ The girl sighs and fidgets with the sleeve of her leather jacket; she looks suddenly vulnerable despite the way she’s dressing to look like a badass. Mac recognizes the eyes of someone who’s grieving a deep loss. “We…I…lost a canister of a deadly virus three months ago. And now it’s resurfaced.” _

_ Mac twists the paperclip in the lock of his cuffs.  _ Might as well show them what they came to see.  _ The vigilante everyone remembered for his improvised traps and escapes. “What do you want me to do about that? You think I have a death wish because I’ve got a life sentence?” _

_ “Yeah, sort of,” the man says. Mac suddenly likes him a little better.  _

_ “Well, I guess getting killed trying to save the world beats reading Crime and Punishment in solitary for the fifth time.” He stands up, letting the cuffs fall off his hands, and then cringes when both his visitors flinch back. The man’s hand goes to his thigh as if he’s reaching for a gun. _ They don’t really trust me after all. 

_ Mac tosses the paperclip onto the table. They don’t trust him, but that’s alright, for now. He just has to get out of this place, and they’re giving him the chance to. He can improvise from there.  _

_ “I’m in.” _

* * *

Jack crouches on the floor next to the speakers relaying what’s coming through the photophone.

“Anything else, Charlie?”

“Well, I'll be back in touch once I figure out how to disarm them both at the same time.” The sound goes dead in a soft crackle. 

Jack turns to Mac, who’s leaning against the chimney looking wrung out and heartbreakingly young. His hair’s messy and falling into his eyes, and his once-white shirt is dusty and smeared with brown grime.

“Mac, have you ever disarmed bombs that are connected to each other before?”

Mac shakes his head. “No.” Jack’s not sure if Charlie has either. “Ones with secondary triggers, yes. But not when they’re this far apart.” 

“Well, between you and Charlie, you’re the two smartest bomb nerds I know, I’m sure you can put your heads together and figure it out.” He sits down and puts his arm around Mac’s shoulder. “Awww, kiddo, I’m so sorry. It’s been one hell of a week.”

“What are you apologizing for? It wasn’t your fault,” Mac says. 

“Can’t a guy say he’s sorry you gotta deal with a ton of crap without you undermining it?” Jack says softly. “Mac, I don’t know what’s goin’ on in that noggin of yours, but I’m willing to bet you’re finding a way to blame yourself right now.”

“Trying not to,” Mac says quietly. Jack’s gaze strays to the kid’s hand, clenched around Jack’s dog tags. “It’s sort of a hard habit to break.” 

“You know what went wrong?” Jack says suddenly. “I forgot the yearly tradition of watching  _ Die Hard _ on Christmas Eve. We shoulda put that on the second we started our little shindig the other day, and none of this would have happened.”

“Seriously?” Mac chuckles. “You’re blaming my arrest, Cage getting shot, and the Ghost planting a bomb in my house on your superstition about a Bruce Willis movie?”

“Well, it makes more sense than saying it’s your fault.” 

The radio buzzes, and Charlie’s voice comes through again. “Hey, Mac, you have a double relay under scoop on yours?” Mac scrambles down into the hole, then yells back up.

“Yeah. I got one right here.”

“All right. I know what we need to do. We're gonna have to cut the wires simultaneously to sever the link. Once they're separated, they won't be able to trigger each other, so we can disarm them individually.”

“That sounds great,” Mac says, and Jack can hear the slight tremor in his voice. 

Apparently Charlie can too. “Okay. I'll count. On three. One, two...”

Mac’s voice rises in a frantic, half-panicked shout. “Wait, no, stop! Stop!”

“What now?!” Jack yells. 

“Speed of light! Speed of light!” Mac gasps. 

From the sound of things on the other end of the comms, that means something to Charlie. “Oh, God. I can't believe we almost just…”

Mac sticks his head up through the floor, running a hand through his hair and looking absolutely shaken. He’s gonna panic and spin out unless Jack thinks of a way to distract him, right now.  _ He dissociates from trauma with science.  _ “Unless you and Chewie are talking about fixing the hyperdrive on the Millennium Falcon, you're just gonna have to explain this whole speed of light thing to me real quick.”

Mac sighs, pulling himself up to sit on the edge of the opening. “Okay, so, the bombs are communicating via a direct wireless link. But Charlie and I are talking through a relay that includes Phoenix comms and my porch light. All those relays mean our verbal connection is slower than the one shared by the bombs.”

“So there's no way for us to cut these two wires at the exact same time.” it’s Jack’s turn to feel hit by the freight train of defeat. 

“And if we don't sever the wires simultaneously, there's gonna be two real big booms in Southern California.”  _ Real reassuring, Charlie. Thanks, man. _ Jack can hear Charlie sigh through the radio. “Man, do you  _ know _ how close I was to cutting that wire?” Jack scrubs a hand over his face, trying to slow his still-racing heartbeat.  _ Looks like the Big Man’s working overtime looking out for us today. _

* * *

Riley sits down on the step of one of the buildings fronting onto the alley. She thinks her legs might not hold her up any longer.  _ Mac and Jack and all those people at the house almost just died. _

If Mac hadn’t realized what was going to happen...She stuffs a fist in her mouth to hold back a hysterical sob.  _ What do we do now? _ She can’t imagine a world that doesn’t have Mac and Jack in it. She’d rather be the one who gets blown to kingdom come. 

Charlie’s pacing, mumbling to himself. “The only way to disarm these things is to cut one wire on each device at the exact same instant.”

“What if we get them closer together?” Bozer asks suddenly. “Motion won’t set this bomb off, right?” 

“No…” Charlie says, glancing up. “You’re saying, we drive this bomb to the house?”

“You got a better idea?” Bozer asks. “We have to do something. And having them closer together at least gives us more options, am I right?” 

“Okay. We’ll need to call in, have your boss expand the perimeter at the house. Five blocks now.” 

Riley climbs in the driver’s seat. Manual transmissions are one of her strong suits. She and Jack ended up bonding partly over their love of classic cars. And while large truck driving isn’t quite the same, she certainly knows enough to keep it running and not stall it out. 

Fortunately, the LAPD evacuation orders have the roads clear. Riley finds herself accidentally whistling the theme from  _ Smokey and the Bandit _ as she steers down the street.  _ I’ve spent way too much time with Jack. _

“So what are we going to do when we get the bomb to the house?” Riley asks.

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead,” Bozer admits. 

“You sound like Mac,” Riley chuckles. 

“Honestly...I really was just trying to think of what he would do.” Riley smiles.  _ It’s good to have him back.  _ Mac needed his best friend. And she’s pretty sure Bozer needed Mac just as much. 

_ We all needed him. _ Just like Mac is their expert at thinking outside the box, Bozer also provides a much needed outside perspective. He sees things differently than agents who are so ingrained in protocol.  _ Even though he’s a trained agent now, I don’t think he’ll ever lose that blunt honesty.  _

That’s part of why she’s so fond of Bozer. In a world founded on lies and secrets, Bozer is the most honest person she’s ever met. Even if he is trying to keep his ongoing relationship with the girl he met at spy school a secret. Riley doesn’t know for sure, but from the look on Bozer’s face when he gets those messages he hides from everyone else, he’s serious about how much he likes her. 

She’s glad that Bozer seems happy. But there’s a small part of her that feels jealous, the way she did when she thought Jack was spending more time with Mac than her.  _ And I thought Mac had abandonment issues.  _ She doesn’t know why this bothers her so much. It’s not like she and Bozer were...not like she’s losing him.  _ We were only ever good friends. Good friends should be happy for each other when one of them falls in love. _

She sighs, switching gears as the truck starts to climb toward Mac’s house in the Hills. It’s not the time to worry about petty things like loneliness or feeling replaced. Because she’s not being replaced. By Mac, or by Bozer’s girlfriend. 

The police barricades are looming up ahead, and Riley sees officers trying to wave her down. She pulls the horn as hard as she can. 

“Stop right there!” One of the cops yells. 

Bozer just leans out the side window and yells back. “Out of the way, people! Big-ass bomb coming through! Watch out, watch out!” Riley sees the officers scattering from in front of the barricades. “Move! Get out of the way!” Bozer shouts, then grins as Riley honks the horn again and drives right through the blockade.  _ Wasn’t strictly necessary, but it felt cool. And Jack’ll love hearing about it. _

She can hear the SWAT commander shouting in her wake. “Are these your people? What the hell are they doing?” 

“Trying to save lives, Commander,” Matty replies.  _ Yes we are.  _

* * *

Mac looks up at the sound of a horn honking and the distinctive backup beeping of a large vehicle. “Good news is, that second bomb just got here. The bad news is…”

“Second bomb just got here?” 

“Right.” Mac sets the DVD player on the counter and begins systematically removing the pieces he’s going to need. When Bozer said they were bringing the bomb here, Mac had an idea.  _ It’s a long shot, but it’s the only way I can think of to be sure we do this right. _

“So what now? We signal Charlie-boy through the window and snip-snip on the count of three or what?” Jack asks. 

“Not quite. Still too many variables, like the amount of time it takes my voice to reach Charlie or the difference in our reaction times. Even the slightest delay in cuts could, uh…”

“Turn your neighborhood into a giant smoking crater? Yeah. I get it.” Jack leans on the counter. “But I assume you're not cannibalizing that DVD player for funsies, so what's the plan?”

“Speed of light, Jack.” Mac picks up the microphone. “Hey, Bozer? I need you to break into Mrs.

Schwartz's house next door and steal her DVD player.”  _ I’ll fix it later.  _ He knows she wouldn’t be too upset that he’s going to use it to save all their lives.  _ We’ll probably just owe her a Hitchcock movie marathon at some point. _ She’s a fan of old suspense films, and he’s sure she’s secretly delighted at living in one, even if she did have to be evacuated from her house with no warning. 

“All right. So what exactly are we building?” 

Mac demonstrates. “Wire cutters that snip when a beam of light hits the photocell.”

“Well, that is Fonzarelli cool, no doubt.” Jack glances at it. “So I’m guessing you want Charlie to build the same thing for his bomb with your neighbor’s DVD player?” 

“Yeah. We just need a bunch of mirrors now, and two prisms.”

“Okay, tell you what, I'll collect the mirrors, 'cause I'm sure you got a box of prisms just layin' around here somewhere.”

“Yeah, I do, actually.” He’s been meaning to go through them at some point; he has no idea where he actually acquired them all.  _ I think some were James’s, and then I got three more in a box of science stuff at a garage sale that was three dollars for the whole box, and I think Bozer gave me one... _

“You're a weird guy, man. I mean, I'm thankful for it, but you're a weirdo, for sure.” Jack chuckles. 

He starts setting up his beam splitter, explaining to Charlie what he’s planning and talking him and Riley through building the photocell cutters. 

Riley moves the truck back to the place Mac’s designated. “Okay, Mac. Truck's in position. What's next?”

“Next, have Charlie position his wire cutters on the truck bomb with the photocell facing the bedroom window so that I have clear line of sight.” He rushes on to the next thing, it’s sort of important. “Oh, and before you do any of that, shut off every light source out there.”

“So that your neighbor's garden lights don't come on and trigger a premature cut followed by a giant boom? Yeah, good call,” Matty says. He can hear her talking in the background now. “You, get the power company on the phone. I want this entire neighborhood dark in ten minutes.” 

He almost laughs when he hears Bozer speak up. “I can do it in two. I just need a wet towel, a broomstick and a ladder.” There’s a disconcerting pause, and then Bozer’s voice again. “What? You think this is the first time Mac's asked me to blow out the power in the neighborhood? Please.” 

Jack steps back into the room. “Hey, man, I’m really sorry about this…” He holds out a smashed mirror. “As if we didn’t have enough bad luck…”

“Jack, superstitions are based on nothing more than the same statistically inevitable coincidences I was telling you about earlier. Broken mirrors or Bruce Willis have no actual effect…”

“Okay, tell me that again in seven years, and maybe I’ll believe you.” Jack chuckles. “Now, what do you want me to do with these things?” 

Mac hands him a crude sketch of the house’s floor plan, with the locations and distances of the mirrors marked out. He goes back to work on putting the finishing touches on the cutters. 

He checks over Jack’s work, watching the man prop mirrors on whatever he can find and then run the measuring tape between them. “And you're sure those last two mirrors are a hundred and…”

“A hundred and twenty-five inches? Yeah, I got it. And the distance between all the mirrors, from the laser pointer to the photocell on each of the bombs is sixty-two feet, eight inches.”

Jack smiles wearily. “We've measured it four times, Mac. You want to do it again?” There’s no frustration in his voice, only a calming reassurance. He’s doing whatever they need to to make sure that Mac is as confident in this as he can be.  _ He’s patient. I don’t deserve someone who cares this much. _ James would have forced him to get it right the first time he set everything up. 

Mac shakes his head. “No. It's just, we're not gonna get another shot at this.” But he’s checked everything over and over. It’s as good as it’s going to get. 

“Yeah, I know. But it’s gonna work.” 

“Well, I'm all set. We just need Bozer to turn off all the lights.”

There’s a crackling sound, and then the room goes black. Mac flinches involuntarily. He’s never been a fan of the dark, and prison only made it worse. 

“Okay. Power's out. Lights are off. We're radio silent.” His photophone won’t work anymore without the porch light. 

Mac holds up the laser pointer. He turns it over and over in his hand, taking deep, slow breaths.  _ You can’t afford to let your hands shake now. Your life and the lives of everyone out there depend on it. _

Jack speaks up. “You know, there is a silver lining to all this. If it doesn't work, it'll be over in an instant. You know me, I ain't afraid of death, I just don't want there to be any pain.” He shrugs. “Who woulda guessed when we first met that we were gonna be standing on a giant bomb in your house, together?”

Mac smiles. “I wouldn’t have.”

“Man, this feels like last year all over again.” Jack chuckles. “When I jumped up in that van and triggered the bomb, remember?”

“And you stopped calling me Carl’s Jr. after it had been like two months.” Mac laughs. 

“Yeah. I thought I was a goner that day. I really did. And I kinda feel like I’ve been playing with house money ever since. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you, Mac.” He shakes his head. “And this is gonna work, but if it doesn’t, I want you to know, that I love you so much, kiddo. You mean the world to me, and I’m so proud of you, and…”

“Don’t make me cry or I won’t be able to see what I’m doing and we will die,” Mac says shakily.  _ I don’t deserve to have someone love me like this. But Jack does anyway. _ “You ready?”

“There’s no one I’d rather die with.” Jack wraps an arm gently around Mac’s shoulders. “Do it.”

Mac flicks on the laser pointer, and watches the light flickering through the prisms and off mirrors. He braces himself, hardly daring to breathe, but it’s already over. If the bombs were going to go off, they would have already.

“Did it work?” Jack asks. “That means it worked, right?”

“Yeah.” Mac says.

“Sweet!” Jack pumps his fist in the air.

Mac shakes his head. “Just  _ please _ , no loud noises yet. We still have two very powerful bombs to disarm. It's gonna take me a while.”

“Right, right. We still have to unboomify the twins. I jumped the gun on that one, I'm sorry.” Jack rubs the back of his neck in clear embarrassment. “Hey, hey, you want another soda?” 

“Um...Yeah. Yes. Just be quiet about it.” Mac smiles.  _ I’m gonna need all the caffeine and sugar I can get. _

* * *

EL PASO, TEXAS

OCTOBER 2016

20 HOURS BEFORE JACK CAN CHECK METALLICA OFF HIS BUCKET LIST

_ Jack prides himself on being able to sleep in any hotel anywhere on earth. Whether it’s a luxury suite in Dubai, a little motel next to the train tracks in Kansas, or a snake-infested room in northern India. He considers it one of his better achievements in life.  _ Comes in handy when you travel the world on a regular basis. 

_ So it just doesn’t make sense that he’s lying wide awake on a comfortable queen bed in an air-conditioned room in El Paso. Yes, he dreamed of the Ghost’s bomb in LA, yes, he woke up panting, convinced he was dead because the damn thing went off. But that shouldn’t be keeping him from going back to sleep. _

After this long in the business, nightmares are a fact of life. _ Despite the fact that for the past three days he’s been consistently dreaming of jumping in the back of that van and hearing the click of the bomb engaging, of Carl’s Jr. and Charlie not figuring it out in time.  _ Should have known better anyway. _ He was EOD overwatch in the Sandbox for almost two years. Running after a guy known for making bombs was a terrible decision. _

Why did I do it? _ Jack stares at the desert-toned wallpaper and the red numerals of the bedside clock and frowns. Why  _ did _ he forget everything to charge in after that man? _ I was angry.

_ He was angry in the same way that made him threaten to use a nail gun on Kendrick when they captured him in San Francisco or threaten to shoot Nick Carpenter in cold blood on that plane. Angry that this man had hurt someone he cares about. And he can’t pretend that it’s all because Riley almost got blown up in the guy’s apartment. _

I was angry because he betrayed Carl’s Jr.  _ The thought is a strange one. A week ago, Jack wouldn’t have even claimed to have particularly liked the kid. But for some reason, when dealing with someone who broke that crazy little genius’s heart, Jack was ready to get his hands on the man’s throat and strangle him himself.  _ What happened to us?

_ He has to admit MacGyver’s been growing on him. Ever since he saved Riley from that bomb and got them back the virus, Jack’s been forced to have some grudging respect for the kid’s abilities.  _ But when did I start protecting him like he was one of my kids?

_ Jack’s not sure, but he thinks the answer to that might be another memory that’s arguably worse than jumping onto a bomb.  _

_ He rolls over, to face the second bed in the room, the one MacGyver’s sleeping in. Or not sleeping, really. The kid’s sitting on the edge of his bed, outlined in silver by the moonlight. Jack’s willing to bet anything that he’s not the only one fighting off nightmares tonight.  _

_ Jack wonders if this is his fault. If what happened in the training room just a couple days ago is still bothering the kid.  _ Wouldn’t blame him. _ He’s been almost painfully aware of how many times he must have forced the kid horribly close to having a flashback like he did. _ I didn’t know… _ But some part of him did. And he still scared the kid.  _

_ He guesses all he can do is go forward from here. If Carl’s Jr. will let him.  _

_ “Hey, Mac.” It feels weird to call him that. Jack has to force himself not to just blurt out “Carl’s Jr.”  _ Guess a couple months of only using a nickname kinda stuck it in my head.

_ The kid jumps slightly, then turns around to face Jack. “I th-thought you were asleep.” His voice is raspy, either from sleep or tears, and Jack can’t tell which, his face is in shadow with his back to the window.  _

_ “Seem to be having some trouble with that tonight. Looks like it’s contagious,” Jack says. He doesn’t really know what to do. It’s the first time he’s really been alone with Mac since the training room. He hopes the kid’s not afraid to be in the same room as him now.  _

_ “Did I wake you up?” Mac asks. He sounds pitifully guilty about it. “I’m sorry.” _

_ “Nah, kid. You always wake up when you die in your dreams, right?” _

_ “Actually yeah, because even thinking you’re dying is a stressor, releases adrenaline…” He’s talking too fast, words stumbling over each other.  _

_ “I mean, I didn’t really need the science behind it, but cool.” Jack sits half up. “So I guess I’m not gonna be able to go back to sleep until that wears off.”  _

_ “Probably.” Mac lays back down on his own bed, but his movements are stiff.  _ Wonder if sleeping in the same room with someone he’s not all too trusting of is bothering him. _ Jack sighs. He won’t be able to go back to sleep now unless the kid goes to sleep.  _

_ “Listen, kid, about what happened…” _

_ “I thought you were going to die,” Mac blurts out. “That I wouldn’t be fast enough or smart enough to beat Pena’s game.”  _ Oh hell. _ Of all the things the kid could be having nightmares about tonight, he’s having one that’s completely focused on someone other than himself.  _ After every horrible thing from his past, from prison, the thing that hurts him the most is thinking he’s not going to be good enough to save someone else’s life. 

_ “But you did it,” Jack says quietly. “You played his game and you won. And I’m still alive to be crossing things off that bucket list because of you.” _

_ “Were you actually serious about singing with Willie Nelson?” Mac asks, and even though his laugh is a little shaky, it sounds like he’s starting to smile a little.  _

_ “You know, that’s  _ not _ the one most people ask about?” Jack chuckles. “Fistfight with Putin is the one that always throws Riley.” _

_ “In space,” Mac reminds him. “Although why you tacked on such a ridiculous condition…” _

_ “Space is cool, dude.” Jack mutters. “And do  _ not _ make some lame joke about it actually being insanely cold, ya nerd.” _

_ “Very funny.” Mac sighs.  _

_ “I like to think I am.” Jack grins, leaning back against the pillow. “Lame jokes and bad puns are Jack Dalton classics, so get used to it.”  _

_ Mac snorts. “Does that mean I have to get used to your snoring too, old man?” _

_ “I don’t snore.” Jack enjoys arguing with people about that.  _

_ “Do you want me to record it on my phone?” Riley threatened the same thing on an all night stakeout in Marrakech. She claims she actually did and is holding it as a blackmail item.  _

_ “No.” He sighs, then glances at the clock. “Go to sleep, kid. Tomorrow’s gonna be a long night.”  _

* * *

Jack wishes there was more he could do to help Mac disarm the bomb. But the kid’s working in a tight space, and he’s got to concentrate. He doesn’t need Jack in the way.

Jack yawns. He’s exhausted, but he’s not going to sleep until Mac is able to sleep. He stands up and starts pacing again, making sure to stay away from the area of the floor Mac is under.  _ Footsteps clumping over his head probably wouldn’t be great for his concentration.  _

He stops when he hears a muffled “Yes!” come up through the floorboards. He hurries over to the hole and watches Mac set the bomb’s control box on the ground, then start to pull himself up and out. The kid’s arms are shaking violently, and it looks like he’s going to fall back into the hole. Jack grabs him under the armpits and hoists him out, shaking his head as the kid leans against the wall, face flushing with embarrassment at needing to be pulled out.

“All done?” Jack asks.

“Yeah,” Mac says wearily. “Let’s go tell them they can take down the roadblocks.”

Jack opens the door and walks out, the arm around Mac’s shoulders as much to keep the kid upright as a gesture of pride and affection. Mac’s practically asleep on his feet. He needs to go to bed and sleep the clock around. Twice.

“Party’s over, folks. Sorry, no fireworks today,” Jack chuckles, feeling a wave of hysterical giddiness that’s a combination of relief and sleep deprivation. 

“Yeah, man. Glad to see you,” Charlie says, smiling, and he grabs Jack’s hand and pulls him into a one-armed hug. Mac gets a group hug from Riley and Bozer, and then bends over to hug Matty as well. Jack’s surprised the the normally very not-touchy Matty allows herself to be hugged like that.

Mac straightens up and wobbles, and Bozer grabs his arm. “Easy, man, you didn’t survive the Ghost’s freaky bomb to fall over and break your neck.” Jack moves back to his kid’s side, slinging one of Mac’s arms around his shoulder. “Come on, kiddo, let’s go crash.” He’s in no condition to drive all the way back to his apartment, and hopefully all the police action drove Murdoc out of LA for the time being.  _ We mighta been searching for a bomb but we probably ran him outta his hidey hole too.  _

Most of the neighbors have gone to stay with relatives or friends, but a few slept in their cars on the other side of the roadblock. Jack watches as people start streaming back to their houses. 

One person looks out of place. Jack doesn’t remember any of the neighbors having a teenage daughter with short black hair and a style that looks a little too street for the Hills.  _ There’s the one with the blue hair and the lip ring, but she’s the only standout. _ What’s even weirder is that she’s making a beeline for the two of them. 

“You Angus MacGyver?” She asks Mac, holding out a box wrapped in brown paper. Jack’s instincts are screaming on high alert.  _ We literally just avoided death by bomb. Is this the Ghost trying to make sure that no matter what, he turns us into a memory? _

“Bomb squad!” Jack shouts, stepping back, and three guys rush up from where they were about to get into their vehicles and drive away. The poor girl looks stunned, surrounded and being shouted at. She hands one of the men the box, and watches them carry it over to one of their vehicles for testing.

She really starts to freak out when one of the men pulls out a pair of cuffs. “Hey man, I didn’t hurt anyone! What the hell?”

“Hey, let her alone.” Jack steps up, waving off the confused officers.  _ She sure as hell ain’t the Ghost. He mighta paid her to bring this and she had no idea what she was getting into.  _ He’s seen that same kind of wild eyed innocent panic not that long ago. When the SWAT team rushed into Mac’s house and arrested him.  _ Not gonna watch another innocent kid be put through hell. _

“Hey, what is this?” The girl snaps. “Why am I gettin’ rushed by a buncha cops?”

“Because you just walked into what an hour ago was an active bomb site,” Jack says. No point in beating around the bush, this is gonna make the papers by tonight, if it hasn’t already. 

The girl looks suddenly a lot more scared. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. And whatever you were carrying looked a whole lot like another one. Hope you can forgive us for all bein’ a little on edge.” 

“It’s clear, Agent Dalton,” One of the bomb techs yells. “No explosive residue, no electronic signals.” He hands Jack back the box. Jack still isn’t sure it’s safe to hand to Mac.  _ What if Pena left him something worse than a bomb? _ “Who told you to give this to Mac?” he asks the girl, catching her arm before she can run off. 

“I don’t know! Some guy!” The girl mutters. “He came along and dropped a hundred in my guitar case and said he wanted me to take this box to this house. Had a funny old hat pulled down over his eyes. Looked like Indiana Jones or something.” 

“Well, good to see someone still knows the classics,” Jack mutters. “He have a lot of scars on his face he was tryin’ to hide?”

“No. He just looked like a normal guy, ‘cept for the hat.” Jack doesn’t know exactly what’s going on but he has the sinking feeling that his suspicion might be right.  _ James. _

“May I?” Mac is reaching for the box, and Jack doesn’t know whether he wants to hand it over.  _ Kiddo, you’ve had enough trouble for a lifetime, all in one day. _ But it’s a little too late to go back. Mac’s already seen the box, and he’s not going to give up until he knows what it is.

He hands the girl over to sit down with a sketch artist. She’s skittish around the cops, but Riley puts an arm around her shoulders and she relaxes. Jack watches them walk off together.  _ She’s a good kid.  _ Jack knows Riley’s familiar with what it feels like to be on the less than legal side of life.  _ She’s going to make sure that kid’s taken good care of. _ Jack knows that Riley was a couple strokes of luck away from being on the streets just like this girl.  _ She ran twice, when things got really bad with some of Diane’s boyfriends, but she just stayed with friends.  _

Jack watches Mac sit down on his front step and start pulling off the paper. Mac’s one of those people who unwraps everything carefully. No torn paper, no ragged edges. Jack guesses he probably never did that even as a kid, not with a perfectionist for a parent.  _ Which is why I didn’t want to give him that box, not really. James already stole his childhood. I don’t want him controlling the rest of Mac’s life too.  _ This search is starting to feel more like a never-ending game, James toying with his son and forcing him to keep reliving his past, preventing him from  moving on. 

Mac sets the paper aside and pulls out a wooden box; it looks handmade. “That’s the box. Mom’s jewelry box. The one the key goes to.” He fumbles in a pocket and pulls out the key they found at the hotel in New York. 

“Hey, dude, careful,” Jack says.

“Bomb squad said it’s safe,” Mac says. 

“All they said was it wasn’t a bomb. Mac, this guy’s the evil you. There could be any kinda killer contraption in there.”

“Jack, you said it yourself at the cabin. If he wanted me dead, there are much easier ways to do it than some elaborate game.”

Jack knows. But more dangerous than any knife-flinging mechanism he can imagine is the man who left this box for Mac.  _ James probably doesn’t want to kill him. But anything else he could want is much, much worse. _ Jack doesn’t want to see the kid hurt again.  _ What Pena became eats at him. I saw that today. This would be a thousand times worse. _ As much as Mac says he just wants to put his father in a cell, Jack knows that that’s going to hurt him.  _ We can’t help but see ourselves in our parents, and them in us. And putting James in prison would cut deep. _

Mac opens the lid carefully, forowning. Jack leans over his shoulder. There’s only one thing in the box. A battered, tarnished pin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And...in the tradition of my last season of Wunderkind, there's going to be a totally original "Christmas Special" episode coming after this one! (Yes, I know its the middle of June, but it's Christmas in the STORY...)


	13. Kilt+Canister

###  212.5-Kilt+Canister

SOMEWHERE IN SCOTLAND

THIS IS NO LONGER A VACATION

“Only you four could go on personal leave and end up in the middle of a black market bioweapons sale.” Jack doesn’t think Matty even sounds surprised, just vaguely disappointed. 

“Hey, it’s not our fault some nutcase stole something dangerous while we happened to be in the country.” Jack’s currently driving, cursing the sleety rain that’s building up on the windshield and clogging the wiper blades. He’d like to be able to actually see the road, since right now they’re curving along the shore of a lake (Mac insists on correcting him to  _ loch _ every time). And that’s not taking into account the occasional flock of sheep that seem to think it’s their patriotic duty to get in the way of visiting foreigners. Jack’s hands still smell like wet wool. 

Matty sighs. “For once, Dalton, do you think you could avoid creating an international incident? You know, MI6 is pretty unhappy that you four entered a supposedly secure and off the books facility.”  

“You’re figuring things out with them though, right?” Jack asks. “And honestly, we didn’t even technically break in. Mac’s kinda related. That’s got to mean something, right?”

“Not when he bypassed their security system with a paperclip and a phone battery.” Matty mutters. Jack glances at Mac, and the kid shrugs.  _ The guy who was there was cool with it. Clearly, his bosses aren’t.  _ “At the moment I’m just trying to convince them not to have all four of you arrested for trespassing, breaking and entering, and destruction of government property.” 

“You think if we get them the guy that actually stole something from them, they’ll take him instead?”

“Maybe. If you can catch him.” 

“Yeah, that’s what we’re working on.” Jack leans forward to rub his sleeve on the windshield, the glass is fogging up from the inside and making the already poor visibility even worse. 

Jack glances in the rearview mirror. “Riley, do you still have eyes on O’Connell?” 

“And ears. He just made a call to a burner phone somewhere in Edinburgh.” Jack can hear Riley typing. “I can’t get a full trace yet, but I can patch into the conversation.”

Jack turns his attention back to the road. He has to be sure the trailing puffs of greyish-white crossing the road are just clumps of fog and not actual physical sheep. It’s hard to tell in this weather. 

He almost swerves off the road when Riley gasps. 

“Ri! I’m drivin’ here, don’t scare me like that!”

Riley doesn’t even bother to acknowledge that. Jack knows she’s freaked out now; otherwise she would have made some smart comment. “It’s worse than we thought. He’s not taking the pathogen out of the country.” 

“Okay, but what’s worse?” Bozer asks. 

“O’Connell wasn’t just paid to steal that bioweapon. He was paid to use it!” Riley’s voice catches. “He’s going to release that bacteria sometime in the next three hours.”

* * *

48 HOURS EARLIER

“So if you just reroute the airflow like this, you have a thirty-two percent more efficient cooling system,” Mac says, finishing the diagram that he’s sketched on the back of one of Cage’s medical charts. He hands it over to Linsey.

“Uh...oh my gosh you’re right. I never would have thought to do that.” She studies the sketch in more detail, tracing parts of it with her fingers. “Disassembling a perfectly good vent fan unit and adding a couple pieces of tinfoil and some stapler springs...and whatever the rest of that is...would not have occured to me.” She turns to Sam. “You were right, he really does think outside the box.”

“I told you, give him some paperclips and duct tape and he could probably build you a car that runs on used chewing gum.” Sam’s still too pale, and sometimes Mac sees pain flicker across her face. But she’s on the mend. “I knew you two would hit it off.”

“Seriously, he should be designing alternative energy options for a living,” Linsey says. “I’ve worked with graduate students who don’t have half the knowledge you do, Mac.”

“When you don’t have a lot to work with, you learn to be flexible and make everything last as long as possible,” Mac says. “People who are used to having all the right tools, everything that’s used for its intended purposes, sometimes they don’t know what to do when those aren’t options.” 

“Well, your kind of creativity is exactly what the future of sustainable energy needs.” Linsey smiles. “You don’t waste anything.” 

He doesn’t know what else to say, so he just looks down, picking at a loose thread on the blanket on Sam’s bed. He’s gotten used to Jack and Riley and even Matty and Patty complimenting him. Bozer was always amazed at what he was able to do, and Jill gets excited every time he comes down to the labs.  _ But they’re all my friends. It was possible they were just being kind and indulgent. _ But someone like Linsey, or Frankie, they have no reason to tell him his ideas are good unless they  _ are. _

His phone buzzes, and he jumps. He’s still not used to the fact that they moved Sam out of intensive care and they’re allowed to have technology in her room now. 

**Riley: Mac, you might want to come down to the lab.**

“I’m sorry, I have to leave,” Mac says. “Uh...if you want I can come back later and explain this in more detail.” 

“You know, if you ever decide to quit this ‘think tank’, I’d be more than happy to hire you,” Linsey grins. “My boss is gonna flip when I show him this and the stuff you did with the solar panels.” 

Mac chuckles, closing the door behind him.  _ Maybe I would have considered it, a year ago. But this is my family and I could never leave. _

And, as it turns out, all of them, aside from Matty and Patty, are gathered down in the lab with Riley. She has her rig open, next to one of the digital scanning microscopes. And on the microscope bed is the pin from his mother’s jewelry box. Mac glances from it to Riley. She looks like she’s pulled an all nighter down here. But she also has that look she gets when she successfully hacks a network or IDs a suspect. 

“I’ve finally managed to identify what James left in that box for you. It’s not technically a pin. It’s a brooch, and this little piece on top is the family crest of a branch of the MacIver clan in Scotland. As near as I can place it, this was made at some point in the mid 1700s. Probably around the time of the Jacobite rising. This particular branch of the clan supported the Pretender Prince Charlie, based on the oak tree design in the center and the thistles around the border.” 

“Wow.” Mac says, gently running a finger over the metal. It’s worn and tarnished, but in shockingly good condition.  _ This is a valuable family heirloom. Why have I never seen it before?  _ But then again, James was never one for sentimentality.  _ He always said past successes never mattered, you were only as good as your next one.  _

Riley turns her rig around to show Mac what looks like a census sheet. “It looks like somewhere during the 1790s, after the family emigrated to the United States, and possibly due to a clerical error, the surname MacIver was corrupted to MacGyver. I took the liberty of tracing backward from your records that were on file, I hope you don’t mind.” 

“Not at all.” Mac studies the cramped, confusing handwriting on the yellowed sheet. It’s so old that the s’s still appear to be written as f’s. No wonder the name got messed up.  _ This was my family. We’ve been around a long time. We’re survivors. _

Riley continues typing, then looks up, and Mac wonders why she looks vaguely sad. “As far as I can tell, ummm, there was an Angus MacIver who was involved in the Jacobite rebellion and the Battle of Culloden, and was captured and imprisoned for treason. Eventually he was sentenced to transportation to Georgia in 1747; I was able to find a partial record of the legal documents surrounding that incident.” 

_ I guess being a convict and considered a menace to society runs in the family too. _ Mac shivers. The thought of being not just sent to prison, but being loaded onto a ship and sent to another country, probably for hard labor, is unbelievably painful. He rubs at his wrists self-consciously, feeling the ghost memory of handcuffs around them.  _ Most other people who learn that one of their ancestors was a transported convict would probably either find that despicable or not even begin to understand what it was like. _ He runs a finger over the brooch again, wondering whether his past namesake ever wished he’d chosen a different side. Whether he regretted standing up for the cause he believed in when they threw him in a cell, when they loaded him onto a ship and sent him away from his home forever.  _ There’s an awful lot of time for regrets in prison. _

He tries not to think about what that would have been like. He didn’t have to sit in the hold of a ship listening to a raging storm and know that if they started to sink he would probably die there, still chained and unable to save himself or even try. At least he wasn’t surrounded by filth and vermin and rats...except the human ones.  _ People have always been people...would that… _ he stops himself there. He doesn’t know and he doesn’t want to. 

Riley continues, her voice quieter. “It appears that he escaped in 1749. I wonder if that’s the reason for the partial name change instead of a record error.”  _ It would make sense, not wanting to be recognized as the traitor who skipped out on his sentence. _ “According to the census I found, he eventually married, and had twin sons and a daughter. From there, one son’s descendants moved to Minnesota in 1850, which is where that branch of the family stayed until Harrison James MacGyver, your grandfather, followed his sweetheart to California.” 

“So what do you think James is trying to tell us with that pin?” Bozer asks. “Are we supposed to follow the family tree back? To Georgia? Or Scotland?”

“This was also on the pin,” Riley says, pulling up an enhanced image from a digital microscope. “Fibers of cloth that are much too intact to have been part of anything original. Based on the color and composition of them, this is hand-dyed wool. But it’s not degraded, so it’s from something made quite recently. I did a little more digging and the side of the family still in Scotland operates a sheep farming and weaving business specializing in heritage tartans.” She pulls up a website that looks like it hasn’t been updated since the 1990s. “They could use a little tech support, but this is the store, operated out of the family home, which also functions partly as a museum.” She pulls up the image from the front page of the site. 

“Dude, you have a literal  _ castle. _ ” Jack grins. “That’s frickin’ awesome.”

“It’s not mine,” Mac protests. “It belongs to very, very extended family. That my side hasn’t seen since the 1700s.”

“Still. That’s really cool.” Jack winks at Mac. “I guess we’ll take some of that personal leave time Matty owes us and hop across the pond.” 

“I thought we used up all of our leave.” Mac’s pretty sure he’s personally been responsible for most of that.  _ Jack keeps taking time off to look out for me, and I had to cut into personal days because I used all my medical leave. _

“That was last year’s. It’s January now, man.” Jack grins. “Which means we have a whole year’s vacation time to beg, borrow, or steal.”

“I guess I should pack a bag,” Riley says. She shrugs. “What? A trip overseas that doesn’t involve nearly getting shot, blown up, or otherwise killed? Sounds good to me.”

“I’ve been wanting to scout locations for a Loch Ness Monster movie for literal years,” Bozer says. “Hey, Mac, maybe we could revive that script for “Creature from the Deep?” I know it’s kinda crappy, because I haven’t touched it since high school, but…” 

“Okay, looks like this is gonna be a  _ family _ vacation,” Jack says, grinning. “This should be fun.”

* * *

SOMEWHERE OVER THE ATLANTIC

THEY’RE FLYING COMMERCIAL THIS TIME

Bozer misses the Phoenix jet. He’s sitting across the aisle from a family with two overly energetic children, and the woman next to him saw him leafing through his revised draft of “Creature from the Deep” and has been attempting to convince him to cast her in his movie, apparently assuming that he’s some big Hollywood filmmaker. He’s flattered, but since he isn’t even planning on filming, he’s had to repeatedly tell her that’s not an option. She’s persistent, even insisted on giving him her phone number ‘for when you’re ready to cast this’. 

Two rows behind him, and across the aisle, Bozer can see Mac nodding off in his seat.  _ He hasn’t been sleeping well since Christmas. _ He stayed at Jack’s house for the week after everything, and he’s only been back home for a few days now. He claimed the nightmares were better. If what Bozer’s heard every night is ‘better’, then he doesn’t want to know what it was like before.  _ No wonder Jack had dark circles under his eyes every time I saw him.  _

Mac’s nightmares seem to be fairly evenly divided between prison, Murdoc, Zoe, and letting Jack die at the hands of the Ghost. He hasn’t slept soundly through a single night. Neither has Bozer. But he’s sadly used to getting up at three a.m. to make hot chocolate and sit with Mac until his best friend feels safe enough to close his eyes again.

And it’s not just familiarity born of the year and a half they’ve been roommates since Mac got out of prison. Mac’s had nightmares as long as Bozer can remember. Some were about his mother. But most that Bozer remembers from back then were about James. 

Mac insists that James wasn’t physically abusive, but Bozer isn’t sure he believes that.  _ James would be just the kind to take corporal punishment much too far and excuse it as just teaching Mac a lesson. Mac might have thought it was normal, or even worse that he deserved to be in that much pain for what he did. _ Bozer wonders sometimes if Mac’s ridiculously high pain tolerance is natural or a learned reaction to what James would do to him.  _ He probably told Mac never to let anyone find out about those punishments.  _

And the closer they get to unraveling these clues, the worse Bozer feels about it. He knows Jack and Riley share some of his fears, but Bozer met a Mac who was freshly away from James’s influence. And he can’t forget the skittish kid who barely looked anyone in the eye, flinched away from loud voices and raised hands, and seemed surprised when no one punished him for not being perfect. 

_ Mac’s a grown adult now. He knows James was wrong. _ But Bozer’s still afraid that somehow, that man will find a way to hurt Mac again.  _ For five years, he dictated everything about how Mac’s world worked. He  _ was _ Mac’s world.  _ And that’s a scarily huge influence, on an impressionable young boy. 

James might not have left visible physical scars (at least Bozer doesn’t know if he did, Mac refuses to tell him whether any of the really old ones are the result of his natural clumsiness or something more sinister) but he certainly did lasting damage. Mac’s devaluation of his own life, the way he’s terrified to make even a single mistake, the way he believes he’s no good to anyone if he’s not directly useful to them in some way… It’s almost worse than seeing lingering marks from a belt or broken glass. 

He shakes his head. Mac’s not going to be alone to face James, not this time. Bozer will have his back. So will Jack and Riley and Sam and Matty and Patty. No one is going to let James get away with hurting Mac again.  _ This time, he’s going to be the one who can’t win. _

* * *

MACIVER FAMILY ESTATE

YES, THERE IS A CASTLE. NO, IT DOESN’T BELONG TO MAC. SADLY. 

“Dude, look at those little knife things.” Jack points out one of the display cases. Riley and Bozer are poking around the shop area, pretending to be a couple on vacation, and Mac and Jack are taking the section that’s been turned into a sort of museum collection. 

“That’s called a  _ sgian-dubh _ .” Mac rattles off the bizarre word without even breaking stride.

“A ski-doo? I thought that was a kind of jet ski. Now you really are just making stuff up, man.”

Mac shakes his head, rolling his eyes at Jack. “No, it’s Gaelic, it means “black knife”. They were small so they could be hidden in the sleeve or the top of a stocking. Basically the 1700s version of a pocketknife, really.” 

“So you come by carrying yours everywhere with you honestly, I guess.” Jack can’t resist ribbing the kid a little. He has to admit, though, it is kind of fun to see all this.  _ Like taking Mac home to the ranch so he could understand me a little better. _ Granted, he knows the kid didn’t really have much of a connection to his heritage, but still, that is part of him. And ever since Riley told them about the ancestor who got shipped off to the colonies, Jack can’t help but think that Mac inherited a lot more than his penchant for carrying a knife.  _ He’s got that same underdog-against-the-world tenacity these people had facing down the British Army.  _ It’s not hard for Jack to imagine Mac living back then, carrying one of those little horn-handled knives instead of his SAK, fighting a guerilla war for a cause he believed in, confusing the British to no end with inventive little traps. 

He doesn’t like to think about what happens after. Doesn’t want to imagine Mac shackled and locked in a dark hole, still defiant because it’s the one thing left he has to hold onto. Because the truth is he doesn’t have to imagine it, all he has to do is remember their first meeting. Jack hopes that that kid who was here a dozen lifetimes ago had someone to protect him, someone looking out for him, watching his back. He can’t bear the thought of someone like Mac facing all of that alone. He hates thinking about the too many years before he was around to protect  _ his _ kid.  _ Was there a me, back there, somewhere in all of it? _

He shakes off the mental image of Mac chained and shivering in the dark, wet, slimy hold of a transport ship and joins the real and much less forlorn version that’s currently looking out a rain-striped window. Or more accurately,  _ at _ the window.

“This is the same tree from the brooch, Jack.” Mac holds up the pin beside the leaded glass panes. “The plaque here says this is the only still-surviving original window, dating to the 1730s. The rest have been replaced over the years.” 

“Anything else interesting about it?”

“Well, there’s a small signature near the bottom, leaded in like the panes. I think it’s a  _ D.C.M. _ ” 

“You think James would have known which window was still here? That that might be part of the clue?”

“I don’t know.” Mac shrugs. “Apparently the windows were made by a member of the family living in Edinburgh, he created them as a protest to show support for the Stuart kings.” 

“That is some time-consuming graffiti,” Jack chuckles. “Never seen someone make a political statement with stained glass instead of spray paint.” 

Mac steps backward, glancing at the window, then at the floor. “I wonder if the shadow…” He stops talking as a family enters the room, two of the smallest children trying desperately to escape their parents’ grasp. 

Jack wanders over to the far wall, which is covered in paintings of the less than friendly looking previous owners.  _ Although I guess if I had to sit still for hours to have my portrait painted, I wouldn’t look to happy either.  _ He wanders along the row, reading the names.  _ Guess Mac can be glad his name’s only Angus. It could actually be worse.  _ And then he glances up at one frame and stops short. 

“Hey kiddo, come look at this.” Jack can’t believe it, this is uncanny. “This guy in this painting, he looks just like you.” It’s almost like someone painted a picture of  _ Mac, _ in this old-fashioned style, and hung it in here. Jack can tell there are subtle differences, the nose isn’t quite the same and the face looks a bit harder than Mac’s features, but whoever this is, he’s clearly a relative. Jack reads the plate on the frame, he’ll have to ask Riley later how this “Conall” guy was tied into the family tree. 

But Mac seems more captivated by the frame than by the painting. “This isn’t level.” He holds up a hand to the frame. “It’s almost a full three degrees off.” 

“So it’s hung a little crooked. It’s a five hundred year old house, dude, the walls are probably bowed and warped all over the place.”

“Every other picture in here is perfectly straight.” He glances back at the window. “And I think, at sunrise, the shadow of that tree would fall directly on it…”

“Wait, you think James hid a clue behind the picture of you?”

“It’s not me, Jack.”

“How do you know? Maybe you’re gonna invent time travel in the lab someday, and go back and get your picture painted. Maybe this is proof…”

“There is so much wrong with that theory I don’t even know where to start,” Mac chuckles. “Time travel is way more complicated than that.”

“Right, you enjoy taking all the fun out of my enjoyment of  _ Back to the Future, _ cause you’re a nerd.” Jack chuckles. “You can tell me all about the physics after we figure out what James left here. Hey, maybe if you do invent a time machine I can go back and sock him in the nose and straighten him out.” Mac shakes his head. “So now what, kiddo? We can’t exactly poke around this place with a bunch of people in here.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.” Mac’s smile is devious. “I think we need a diversion.” 

“Oohh I like this,” Jack chuckles. “What’s the plan?”

“Well, I’m gonna need…” Mac glances around. “Can you take off your shoe and give me that sole insert?”

“Take ‘em both why dont’cha?” Jack says, walking toward a bench to sit down. “Wait. Dude, do you think this is gonna set off alarms if I sit in it?”

“Nope. That’s just a bench.”

“I like the Scots. They’re way more logical than the Belgians,” Jack says as he sits down and starts removing his shoe. “They have places to sit that don’t screech at you.” He hands Mac the shoe inserts. “Are you gonna hang these on the wall?”

“Not exactly.” Mac’s pulling a shoelace out of his own shoe. 

Two minutes later the mother with children is screaming about seeing a rat, the father is picking up the two little kids under each arm, and the oldest sister is reaching for a claymore mounted on the wall, clearly fully intending to dispatch the enemy. Her mother hustles her out of the room before she’s able to get her hands on the weapon. 

“Nice trick,” Jack says. 

“Bozer’s mom thought a sock in the laundry room was a rat once and beat it with a broom,” Mac chuckles. 

“And you’re the kind of person to file that away for future helpful knowledge,” Jack grins.

“Actually, I was gonna use it as a prank, at some point.” Mac shrugs. “Okay, let’s see what’s behind that picture.”

“You gonna ask for my boots to decorate the wall  _ now? _ ” Jack asks. 

“I don’t think we have to remove the painting at all,” Mac says. He’s staring at the corner of the frame. “It looks like something’s tucked into the back. All I have to do is…” He pulls out the tweezers on his knife and grabs the edge of what looks like old photo paper. “Pull it out.” 

“What did he leave for you this time?” Jack asks. 

Mac holds up a creased photo. “Just a picture. Him and Mom.” Jack takes it gently and turns it over.  _ 1987\. They must have been recently married here _ . He studies them both, but there’s less resemblance to Mac between the two of them than there is in that painting this picture was tucked behind. Jack can vaguely tell that Mac inherited his father’s jaw and his mother’s blond hair. 

James is half-smiling, but it looks fake. Like someone who’d never been genuinely happy in their life, trying to imitate what they’ve seen other people do. Mac’s mother, on the other hand, is smiling widely, like she’s trying to make up for James’s lack of enthusiasm. Jack wonders how a kind woman like she must have been ended up with a monster like James.  _ But then again, I always wondered how Diane ended up with Elwood…  _

He leans down a little closer to get a better look, and he can see that there’s a third person in the picture. Partly hidden behind James’s shoulder. 

“Wait, Mac, who’s that behind them?”

“That…” Mac glances at him, wide-eyed. “That’s Jonah Walsh.”

“You don’t think he’s telling you to talk to that scumbag, do you?” Jack knows Walsh is currently locked up in some dark hole, after his failed attack on Phoenix. He’s pretty sure if he sees the man again he’s going to want to bash his nose in.  _ He was so determined to hurt James that he tried to use Mac to do it.  _ Jack knows that’s the real reason Walsh okayed the Bishop mission. And Jack doesn’t think he can ever forgive that. 

“Walsh knows more about James than any of us. Hunting him was his life’s obsession. Maybe it’s worth a try.” 

* * *

DINING AREA

BOZER IS ON HIS THIRD SCONE

“My gosh, these things are amazing,” Bozer gasps, reaching across the table to grab another scone off the plate they’re sharing. “Remind me to make these when I get home.” He grins. “Anyone up for coming over and testing some attempts?” 

Riley nods, brushing crumbs off her sweater. She glances across the table at Mac, who’s still studying the picture in front of him. “That was a lot of trouble to go to to send you a family picture,” she says, putting a finger on the photo after checking to be sure there’s no cream left on it. “I can scan this when we get home and enhance it, see if there’s a clue in the background.” Patty’s already confirmed that it is Walsh in the background, and the building this was taken in front of was an original OPI site.  _ When James was still an agent. _ When he and Walsh were friends. 

As much as she wishes she couldn’t understand Walsh’s obsession, she does.  _ I would have hunted Nick to the ends of the earth, without Jack and Cage to stop me and make me think about what I was doing.  _ Clearly Walsh didn’t have people who reined him in. He felt betrayed, and he made it his life’s mission to destroy James no matter the cost. 

Riley doesn’t like the idea of Mac going to talk to that man.  _ He didn’t care about any of us, especially not Mac. _ She still can’t forgive Walsh handing Mac over like a piece of lab equipment for that FBI cooperation that landed him back in prison and… 

She takes a large swallow of her coffee, even though it scalds her throat. And then her computer pings. She almost chokes on the liquid in her mouth.  _ Friar got a hit. _ She’s had the software up scanning local security feeds for James, on the slim chance that he’s hanging around in person waiting for Mac to show up. She doubted that was possible, but…

“What was that?” Jack asks. Riley just shakes her head. She pulls up the notification and reads the file name attached to the picture. Half of her is relieved that it’s not what she thought. The other half is very, very concerned. 

“Guys, we have a big problem.”

“What?” Jack asks, starting to stand up. 

“Who, not what.” Riley shows them all the picture that just popped up on her rig. “Tommie O’Connell. Formerly IRA, now freelancing to the highest bidder. I caught him on a camera exiting the property just now.” 

She pulls up his dossier, and Jack whistles. “Damn. This guy doesn’t mess around. Direct ties to twenty-eight bombings, eight assassinations, and a foiled nerve gas attack in London just last year. And that’s just what he’s known to have been involved with.” 

“So what is he doing here?” Bozer asks. 

“Another one of James’s disgruntled customers trying to track him down, maybe?” Jack asks. “Mareks can’t have been the only one.” 

“Now that I know what he’s wearing I can see if Friar can reconstruct his activities,” Riley says. It’s only going to take a few minutes to ask the program to search the spectrum signature of the man’s clothing instead of targeting facial features. “Okay, he entered the grounds at eleven a.m., but he didn’t go into the house. The last visual I have is of him heading toward a small outbuilding that actually isn’t part of the public grounds.” She stops, because the CCTV feed she’s pulling in is actually being interfered with. A wireless signal is transmitting simultaneously, although it’s weak with the heavy stone walls between her and it. But the interference is very visible from the camera. 

_ Whatever it is, it’s strongest near that outbuilding. I wonder... _ The signal is very weak, and she loses it a couple times, but when she finally manages to keep it up long enough to analyze it, her decryption software alerts her that the security is an MI6 encryption signature. “Guys, I think I have something.” She glances around the room; the chatter has died down and people are starting to watch them curiously. “Uh...maybe we should move this to the car.” 

When they get back to the rented Land Rover, Riley sits down on the back seat and gets to work digging into whatever she can find about this place.  

“It looks like Mac isn’t the only member of his family who’s secretly working for a government organization. The estate houses a secret state of the art bioresearch lab, and since most of the grounds are private, it’s the perfect unquestioned security.”

“How did you find that out?” 

“Well, one of the sheep farmers next door reported his flock mysteriously dying in 1988. He’s sworn up and down for years that it was some covered-up government experiment.” Riley opens a grainy video file from the BBC. 

_ “A tragic sight greeted Ioan McGoggin this morning. He awoke to find his entire herd of 900 sheep lying dead in his fields. Our Highlands correspondent, Nancy Bartlett, will be sharing this with us live.”  _

When the shepherd comes on, his accent is almost too thick to understand.  _ “Errythin’ I own gone, all i’ one night. ’s an absolute outrage.” _ He turns, and in the background Riley can see the outline of the castle they’re sitting in front of. _ “I've lived hereaboot for fifty-seven years, and that lot over there always seemed off, but this is absolutely daft.”  _

_ “Are you accusing your neighbors of sabotage?” _

_ “No ma 'am. Accusin’ them o’ testin’ some kinda government weapon. I seen this in them news videos from the wars that you people show. There's nerve gas over there. Or summat like that.” _

Riley shuts off the video. “Everyone thought he was a crazy old conspiracy theorist, but thanks to Phoenix collaboration with MI6 I have access to files, and I found some detailing the installation of a government biological innovations testing site on the property in 1973. It was officially decommissioned for biological warfare testing in 1988. Shortly after the sheep incident. However, it is still used for research purposes.”

Bozer swallows the last of his scone, then leans over the table to whisper to her. “So you think whatever O’Connell was here for…”

“Was in that lab.” 

* * *

THIS PROBABLY ISN’T A BARN

IF IT IS, THEY’RE ABOUT TO LOOK LIKE IDIOTS

“For a secret government lab, they really have terrible security,” Jack mutters. “There isn’t even a guard.”

“That would probably draw too much attention,” Bozer says. “Because in every spy movie ever, the door with all the guards around it is the one that has the secret lair behind it.”

“Besides, I think that herd of cows was pretty good protection,” Riley mutters, brushing straw off her jacket. “If you’re not someone with Jack’s Texas wrangling skills, you’d probably be in trouble.” 

Jack grins, turning around to look at the herd of shaggy cattle, their damp forelocks flopping down into their eyes. They were all clustered under the overhang of the roof, out of the rain, but a little coaxing and prodding from Jack and Riley got them moving. “They kinda look like you, Mac,” he chuckles. The kid’s hair is starting to grow out again, and it’s long enough that in this damp weather, it gets bedraggled and hangs down over his forehead. He ignores Mac’s glare and opens the door. 

Inside, the building is damp and cool and smells like wet cattle and hay and manure.  _ A barn is a barn no matter where you are in the world. _ Jack’s always found them to be particularly homey.  _ Spent the better part of my childhood in one.  _ Even that time he got winged on a Delta op and had to hide in a livestock shed waiting for backup, it had felt peaceful. 

“Okay, so there’s gotta be a secret door around here somewhere, right?” Bozer asks. “There’s always a secret door.” 

“Ok, fan out. Bozer’s right,” Jack says. “I’m pretty sure O’Connell wasn’t here for the atmosphere.” 

“I think I found it,” Mac says. “That hay hook isn’t actually connected to the rope it should be. The rope goes over the pulley and back to that wall.” He tugs at it, and there’s a creaking groan of machinery as the back wall of the barn slides open. There’s a dumbwaiter style elevator behind the faux stone. 

“Hey, wait. Handprint scanner,” Riley says. “Give me a minute to jack in, and…”

“Hey, step aside for a second,” Mac says, he’s got his hands full of something. 

“What’s that?” Jack asks. 

Mac blows whatever’s in his hands onto the scanner glass, then coughs at the cloud of choking dust that blows back at him. “Ground up feed. Dust will cover the latent oils on the glass and if we cover it with a cloth…” He pulls off his jacket and lays it over the scanner. “And...handprint.” 

The dumbwaiter mechanism engages, and Jack, Riley and Mac step inside. 

“Hey Boze, you wanna stay up here and keep an eye out for anything?” Jack asks. 

“Sure, I’ll sit here and watch the cows.” Bozer grins. “They are kinda cute.” 

“See, Mac, he’s with me,” Jack says. Mac is still groaning when Riley presses the only down button in the elevator. 

Once they’re below the surface, the place looks completely different. The barn appears not to have changed since the eighteenth century. But this area is state of the art. It looks almost as up to date as Phoenix labs, although Jack can see definite traces left over from the seventies design. 

They step out into a narrow, tiled entryway floor. In front of them is a sealed door with a keypad entry, that Jack thinks hasn’t been updated since the nineties. Still, it’s possibly more secure than the card readers at Phoenix, if he’s being honest.  _ People can steal cards. _ That’s why the cold storage vaults have duplicate security measures, keypad, card, and fingerprint scanner. 

Riley looks up from the keypad and shakes her head. “Uh, we have a problem. I can’t use a rotating password system hack on this, because it’s programmed to engage full lockdown if just one wrong password is entered, which lasts for an hour.”

Mac looks at Jack, and Jack doesn’t like that gleam in his eyes.  _ That’s the look that means I never see my phone alive again. Or that something is about to catch on fire. Or both.  _ “Jack, I need your phone.”

“No way, man.” Jack puts one hand protectively over his pocket. 

“I’d use mine, but…”

“You dropped it in the lake,” Jack finishes for him.  _ I woulda apologized for laughing, but it was just so damn funny that he ruined his own phone for once.  _

“ _ Loch, _ actually.” Mac frowns. “I was trying to get a good picture of that fish.”

“Dude, if you tell me you were gonna use that to scientifically debunk the Loch Ness Monster…” 

“Phone? Please?” Mac’s doing the puppy eyes again. 

“Wait, this is a secret bioresearch lab. What if they’re  _ makin’ _ the Loch Ness Monster down here?” Jack pulls his phone out of his pocket and hands it over. “Okay, man, get us in there.” 

* * *

Mac snaps open the back of Jack’s phone and pulls out the battery. “We can’t get through this security system with the code. But maybe we don’t have to.”  _ We can get the door open without the code. It’s just going to be a little...messy. _

He attaches two of his paperclips to the battery. It’s not ideal, but it should work. He pries the cover off the keypad and presses the two paperclips to the wires behind it. There’s a wisp of plasticky-smelling smoke, and then the doors slide open. 

“Nice.” Jack shakes his head.

“Yeah, there was a fifty-fifty chance it would work, it could have sent it into lockdown too,” Mac says, stepping in.

“So you destroyed my phone on a fifty-fifty…” Jack stops, raising his hands. Mac looks behind him, then does the same. There’s a red-haired man behind them, probably a few years older than Mac, holding one of the beaker stands like a bat.  _ Oh. _

“What are you doing down here? You’re not cleared for this area...and why is that smoking?” He glances past Jack to the door. 

“Uh, we can explain,” Mac says. The man raises an eyebrow at him. 

Riley nods. “We’re with an American agency, the Phoenix Foundation.”

“Never heard of it.” 

“Here, we got credentials,” Jack says, tossing the man his badge. Mac and Riley do the same. The man opens their wallets and glances from their clearance badges to their faces. He hands Jack and Riley’s back, then glances at Mac’s. He frowns. 

“Wait, Angus  _ MacGyver _ ?” Mac nods, slowly. 

“I promise, I’m not dangerous.”

The man gives him a quizzical look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

_ Oh. Right. Most people here probably have no idea who I am. _ Mac’s gotten so used to having to explain himself when people find out who he is, that he’s forgotten it’s not really something he has to worry about as much when they’re not home.  _ I mean, we spend a lot of time in other countries, but usually not under our real names.  _ “Uh...nothing...I mean, I thought you were upset I bypassed the security…”

“I’d be more concerned if there wasn’t a well deserved reputation in this family for slightly destructive ingenuity.” The man holds out his hand. “I’m Douglas MacIver.” He grins. “That’s hardly the worst thing someone’s done here. My wee brother Alec near burned the place to the ground one summer.” 

“Yep, that sounds an awful lot like Mac,” Jack chuckles. “Wait, is that gonna be confusing? I mean, he usually goes by Mac, but we don’t really know anyone  _ else _ back home who…” 

Douglas chuckles. “I’ll probably call him that anyway. I’ve a terrible memory for names. Molecular formulas I’m good with, but half the techs who work here I just call “Mac.” It’s sort of a safe assumption.” He grins. “So what exactly were you doing breaking into the lab? Unless you’re like Alec and just did it for fun.” 

“Um...it’s a long story, but we came here in the first place because I was trying to find out about my family’s past.” Mac isn’t sure telling this man that they’re looking for someone else who apparently broke in here is the best idea. He’d rather establish some trust first. 

“I guess we’re third cousins fifty-seven times removed or something?”

“Um, actually…”

“Mac, he doesn’t really care.” Jack shakes his head. “Let’s focus on finding whatever our Irish friend stole, okay?”

“Wait, what?” Douglas asks.  _ Yeah, he almost brained us with a beaker stand, I didn’t think he was going to react well to that.  _

“Someone broke into your lab earlier today. Not us,” Riley clarifies. “And whoever it was looped your security feeds during the break-in, so…” Mac watches Douglas stare at her,  _ she says that like it’s normal but he’s probably wondering how she managed to get into their system.  _

“I just got here, I didn’t see…” The man trails off, then rushes to a cabinet, unlocks the combination lock holding it closed, and yanks it open, pulling out what appear to be freezer storage drawers. “Oh no.” Douglas looks actually rattled for the first time since they all came piling through the door. “PR87 is gone.”

“Uh...I’m gonna guess that’s not a good thing?” Jack says. “Is it like, a baby Loch Ness Monster?”  _ Really, Jack?  _

Douglas shakes his head. “It’s an extremely dangerous pathogen.”

“Wait, I thought this lab was decommissioned for biowarfare research in the eighties,” Jack says. “Ri?” She nods. 

“It was an accident, really.” Douglas turns back to his desk, leaning heavily on it like he’s suddenly incapable of supporting his own weight. “We were trying to develop a plastic-consuming bacteria to clean landfills. But something in the gene splicing went terribly wrong. The bacteria ate its way out of the containment area and we were forced to quarantine a whole laboratory. There were a dozen test mice in there, and all of them died within twenty-four hours of exposure.”

“So why do you  _ still have it? _ ” Jack asks. 

“Because we had a fundamentally correct organism. We just needed to fine tune it, and completely destroying it would have set us back months.” He shrugs. “That’s actually Dr. Milhouse’s project, I would let you talk to her but she’s in Edinburgh giving a university lecture today.” 

Mac glances around the room. “So if it ate through a containment area, what are you keeping it in?”  _ They engineered something specifically to break down non biodegradable components.  _ It probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but that does limit the amount of materials that can be used to contain it. 

“A specially reinforced canister,” The man says. “Shockproof, hermetically sealed, requires a unique three digit code to access.” He pulls out a schematic drawing and spreads it on a table. 

“Is there any other way to open the canister?” Riley asks. 

“Well, I suppose with enough brute force… but that would risk shattering the inner vial and releasing the bacteria.” 

“I don’t think this guy is gonna think that through.” Mac frowns. “And he’s got quite a head start on us.”

“Not for long,” Riley says, holding up her rig. “I tasked a satellite to track his movements after he left the parking lot, and it’s picked him up. If we hurry, we can probably catch up before he reaches any major airport to leave the country.”

“I think you should probably go now,” Douglas says glancing at the phone that’s been buzzing in his pocket. “Because that keypad you fried sent a damage alert back to MI6 and...they’re not too happy about it.” He shrugs. “They’re also on their way here now, because as you just politely informed me, the security feeds are looped and they can’t see anything, which they are  _ not _ happy about.”

“Ok, thanks,” Jack says. “Wait, aren’t we supposed to like knock you over the head or something? So they don’t accuse you of being in on it when they find out that canister’s gone?” 

“Definitely not necessary. I’ll think of something,” Douglas says. “We’re good at improvising.” Mac grins at him.  _ Yes, we are. _

* * *

Riley really isn’t looking forward to the inevitable call. They’re already on the road; past one flock of unruly sheep, when Matty’s ringtone blares out of Jack’s phone. He sets it on the console and answers it, still keeping his eyes on the road and one hand on the wheel. “Hey boss lady, how’s it going?”

Matty sounds significantly less cheerful. “Only you four could go on personal leave and end up in the middle of a black market bioweapons sale.” Riley knows they’re in for it when they get back home. 

“Hey, it’s not our fault some nutcase stole something dangerous while we happened to be in the country. Or did you not see Riley’s situation update?” 

Matty sighs. “For once, Dalton, do you think you could avoid creating an international incident? You know, MI6 is pretty unhappy that you four entered a supposedly secure and off the books facility.”  

“You’re figuring things out with them though, right?” Jack asks. “And honestly, we didn’t even technically break in. Mac’s kinda related. That’s got to mean something, right?”

“Not when he bypassed their security system with a paperclip and a phone battery.” Matty mutters. “At the moment I’m just trying to convince them not to have all four of you arrested for trespassing, breaking and entering, and destruction of government property.” 

“You think if we get them the guy that actually stole something from them, they’ll take him instead?”  _ At least they’re smart enough to realize we didn’t take the canister. Or that Douglas guy told them. _ He really did remind her of Mac in an odd way. She tries not to wonder if she’s like her extended family. She doesn’t know anyone on Elwood’s side at all.  _ Small wonder, they probably cut ties with someone like him.  _

“Maybe. If you can catch him.” 

“Yeah, that’s what we’re working on. Riley, do you still have eyes on O’Connell?” She does. And the satellite in question happens to be a telecommunications one. Which is about to become very, very helpful.  _ I wonder if he wonders why he’s getting such good signal.  _

“And ears. He just made a call to a burner phone somewhere in Edinburgh. I can’t get a full trace yet, but I can patch into the conversation.” 

Whoever is on the phone with O’Connell is using a verbal scrambler. Riley starts pulling up her countering software, but stops dead when she hears what the person is saying. “Proceed as scheduled, and continue to the site we agreed on, . By the time they realize what’s happening, it will be much too late. And in three hours, it won’t matter at all.” 

The call cuts off, and Riley hears her shocked gasp echo in her ears. 

“Ri! I’m drivin’ here, don’t scare me like that!”

“It’s worse than we thought. He’s not taking the pathogen out of the country.” 

“Okay, but what’s worse?” Bozer asks. 

“O’Connell wasn’t just paid to steal that bioweapon. He was paid to use it!” She stares out the window at the rain, shuddering. “He’s going to release that bacteria sometime in the next three hours.”

“Oh, that’s not good.” Jack hits the brakes again. “Damn it, these sheep!” He scrambles out of the car, and Mac follows him. Riley watches the two of them running back and forth in the rain, and she doesn’t miss the gentle hand Jack rests on Mac’s shoulder when they walk back to the car.  _ He’s been more protective than usual lately. _ He has good reason. Mac’s nearly been killed by nerve gas, lost someone on an op (even if it was over video call), got arrested, and almost got blown up. 

She can’t say her life as a spy’s been easy. She’s got her scars and nightmares. But all that pales in comparison to what she’s seen Mac endure just in the two years she’s worked with him. She can’t imagine Jack not being there to watch his back.  _ It would be so much worse for him if Jack wasn’t here.  _ She leans back a little further into the seat, watching Jack climb in and lean over to brush some of the sleet out of Mac’s hair before he drives off. 

* * *

SOMEWHERE IN SCOTLAND

IT ALL LOOKS THE SAME IN THE RAIN

Jack hopes they’ve passed the last of the sheep. He’s damp and cold and his shoes are caked in mud.  _ Give me Texas summers any day. _ “Riley, how’s it going back there?”

“Tommie ditched his phone right after making that call.” Riley says. “I can get us to his last known location, but after that…”

“It’s the only chance we have,” Jack says. “How close are we?”

“The way you’re driving, ten minutes out. If we don’t have any more sheep.” 

“Uh, am I the only one concerned that we’re driving toward someone who’s planning to release a super-dangerous superbug?” Bozer asks. “Not that I’m saying we shouldn’t try and stop him, but…”

“Doesn’t do any good to panic,” Mac says. “Besides, if he did release it, there might not be any place safe, eventually.”  _ Really reassuring, kiddo. _

“At least it’s on an island,” Jack says. “You could sort of contain it, right? Isn’t there a zombie movie about that?” He’s very sure he remembers seeing it; there were monkeys at some point, he thinks.  _ Rather not be living in it though. _

“I think you mean  _ Twenty Eight Days Later, _ ” Bozer says. “And...um, if you’d seen the sequel you’d know that doesn’t work out too well for them.” 

“Mac, maybe you better get busy making that lightsaber, if we’re about to be running for our lives from a pack of zombies. Riley and I are both real sure that’s the best defense.”  _ Where’s Cage and her plan for a katana when you need her?  _

“That’s not what this bacteria does, Jack,” Mac rolls his eyes. 

“How do you know? All your third cousin fifteen times removed or whatever told us was that those rats  _ died. _ He didn’t say how. Maybe they ate each other’s brains, man.” 

“Phone signal stops here,” Riley says. Jack hits the brakes and they all climb out, kicking through the rocks and clumps of heather alongside the road. 

“I think I found it,” Mac says, holding up a phone with a smashed screen. “It seems pretty dead, though, Riley. I’m not sure you’ll be able to pull anything off it.” 

“Hang onto it anyway,” Jack says. “Who knows when you’re gonna decide you need another phone to tear apart?” Mac shrugs, hands the phone to Riley, and then stops, eyes going suddenly wide. 

“Guys, stay back.” He’s staring at something in front of him. 

“What is it, kiddo?” Jack asks. There’s a chill sliding down his back and it’s not from the still-dripping sleet.  _ A dead animal? Did they know someone was onto them? Was the phone call a fake? Did they release the virus right here? _

“Jack, it’s the canister, and it’s empty.”  _ Damn it, this can’t be happening. _ Mac can’t be infected. 

“So he removed the vial?” Riley asks. 

“Yes.” Mac looks up, and Jack can see how frightened the kid is, no matter how well he’s trying to hide it. “I’m not sure if…” And then Jack sees his forehead crinkle with the first pieces of an idea. He pulls off his shoe and carefully rubs the sole of it over the open canister and the ground around it, then pulls it back to look at it. He breathes a small sigh of relief. “That bacteria was made to disintegrate plastic and rubber materials. But my shoe sole is still intact.” 

“Good.” Jack hurries over, needing to see for himself that Mac is okay. Mac reaches for the canister, and Jack shakes his head, pulling the kid’s arm back. “Hey, hey, hey, don’t touch it! Just to be on the safe side, dude.” 

“This canister wasn’t damaged. The code lock was released.” Mac points down to the opened top. Jack can see a small green light glowing against the ground.

“How could he possibly have that code?”

“Think about it, Jack, how did he get into that lab without getting caught? We’re the ones that MI6 wants. He clearly didn’t show up on their cameras or need to force the doors.” Jack realizes the kid’s right. He’s had a lot on his mind, but now that Mac mentions it, there were no signs of forced entry before Mac fried the keypad, and O’Connell was in and out in half an hour at most. He knew right where to look for the cylinder. 

“This was an inside job.” 

* * *

Bozer watches nervously as Mac wraps the canister in his jacket. He knows Mac proved there wasn’t any of the dangerous bacteria around, but that doesn’t make him feel much safer.

Riley’s leaning against the land rover, on the phone. She hangs up and walks back over, her hair’s a mess of frizzy curls from the rain now and she has to keep shoving it out of her face. 

“Looks like your guess was a good one, Mac,” Riley says. “Even though every employee at the lab uses the same entry code, only one person knew the code to open the canister. When the police picked up Dr. Milhouse at the University of Edinburgh, she still had the burner phone that O’Connell had been contacting her on.” 

“I love it when they get cocky,” Jack says. “Makes our jobs easier.”

“Well, not yet,” Riley says. “She’s not talking.”

“So we don’t have a location?” Mac says. 

“He could release that bacteria in any major city, and the impact would be devastating.” Riley says. “Normal containment suits wouldn’t be any kind of protection.”  _ Right. Because this stuff eats plastic. _ Bozer’s okay with mutated supergerms in  _ movies, _ but they’ve always given him the creeps a little to hear about in real life.  _ Because what if a vaccine resistant disease did come back? No one would be safe. _ He was scared for Mac in prison, especially after he found out exactly what was happening to him; there were so many serious illnesses Mac could contract in a place like that.  _ Who would have cared to really take good care of a prisoner who was facing life for murder?  _ And this is downright terrifying. 

“I’m laying out a three-hour travel time radius from this location,” Riley says as they slide into the car, pulling up a map on her rig. “I’ll flag any major population centers, and any water supply plants.” Bozer wasn’t there for the VX op, but he’d heard that the place the people who’d stolen it were planning on releasing it was a water treatment plant that supplied New York City.  _ Please tell me this isn’t going to end the same way. _ He can’t watch Mac laying in a hospital bed fighting for his life again. 

Riley looks up again, and this time there’s a bit of confidence mixed with the concern in her face. “There’s a huge reenactment going on about twenty miles away at Falkirk. It’s expected to be quite heavily attended, a lot of tourists will be there, and people are coming from both Edinburgh and Glasgow since this area is almost directly halfway between them.”

“That would be a prime spot to release a pathogen,” Jack says. “Impossible to contain, visitors could spread it to the cities, and there would be no option to simply quarantine a building. People would slip through the cracks.” 

“They’re going to be firing cannons,” Riley says. “It would be a perfect dispersion method, much less immediately concerning than a bomb and covering a lot more area than physical contact.” Sometimes Bozer thinks they know way too much about the best ways to do serious damage.  _ But then again, I’m a writer, can I really complain? _ He’s looked up everything from the most famous serial killers to what the symptoms of various lethal poisons are. 

He tries to relax, there’s nothing they can do until they get there. He can see Mac in the rearview mirror, he’s bending paperclips into the shape of thistle flowers and crowns, and he’s pretty sure he sees one biohazard symbol in there too. 

“So when we get there, how are we gonna find this guy?” Jack asks, tapping one finger repetitively on the steering wheel.

“Uh, I have a plan,” Mac says. “But...I’m not sure you’re gonna like it…”

* * *

FALKIRK

CURRENTLY NOT SURE IF IT’S 1746 OR 2018

“For the record, I hate this plan,” Jack grumbles. “Why can’t we just get the local SWAT team or whatever they have here and bring him in?”

“Because if we do, we risk him releasing the pathogen prematurely. And even one person being infected is a risk.”

“So we have to wear skirts?”

“It’s not a skirt. It’s a kilt,” Mac says. He’s currently trying to figure out how to properly fasten it.  _ These guys were serious about historical accuracy. _ “It’s traditional Scottish Highland clothing, which was actually banned for a while after the Jacobite rebellion-”

“Call it whatever you want, dude. I’m still gonna freeze my ass off out there. Literally.” Jack’s fumbling with the folded, loose fabric. “I’d ban this thing too. Ow, damn it!” He’s apparently stabbed himself with the pin from the brooch. “I am never going to complain about tie tacks and cuff links again.”

Mac’s finally figured out the correct way to drape the cloth so that it covers him properly.  _ The last thing I need is this thing coming loose out there, I feel exposed enough already. _ He can laugh and joke about this with Jack, but that’s completely different. He finishes pulling on stockings and shoes, then glances around the inside of the small shed they’ve more or less commandeered. His and Jack’s normal clothes are stacked up neatly along the wall, alongside a collection of yard tools and a small wheelbarrow, but the bench Riley put the clothing she stole (while pretending to be a reporter covering the reenactment) on is now empty. 

“Um...This is all you brought, Riley?” Mac asks.

“I was stealing these from a trailer surrounded by a bunch of guys carrying literal broadswords. I didn’t really have time to poke around for every little thing.”

“You didn’t grab any of those little pouches like all the other guys are wearing?”

“No, I thought those were just really fancy fanny packs or something…”

Mac cuts her off. “That’s called a  _ sporran, _ it’s kind of important. Kilts don’t have pockets, so those are what they use instead.” 

Jack shakes his head. He at least can keep some of his gear on him, his chest holster is hidden underneath the loose shirt and the drape of the tartan cloth over his shoulder. Mac’s not sure if tucking his knife in his sleeve is worth the risk of losing it. He’d rather know he doesn't have it to work with than be depending on it and realize it’s fallen out. He decides against it and tucks it back into the pocket of his jeans. 

“I can go back if you want, but I’m not entirely sure they’ll let me through again. Although the guy who was kind of possibly flirting with me might. I couldn’t tell if he was complimenting me or insulting me, between the accent and the really weird words he was using.” 

“I guess we’re fine. Still, a pocket would have been nice…”

Mac can hear Riley laughing on comms.  _ For her, having to go undercover almost always means she’s stuck with a dress that doesn’t have any pockets. _ She’s probably enjoying being on the other end of this for once.   

“Um, guys, not to rush you, but um...we’ve got less than an hour left,” Bozer says. 

“Yeah, we’re coming.” Mac tugs gently at the layers of clothing, nothing feels like it’s loose or about to suddenly fall off.  _ Probably the best I can hope for. _ He follows Jack out the door and they hurry to the edge of the open area the reenactment is taking place in, slipping into the fringes of the crowd without attracting any undue attention.

“Blending in at a high-society shindig is one thing, but this...this is going above and beyond the call of duty, Mac,” Jack whispers. “No wonder these guys lost, how could you possibly fight in this thing?” Jack asks. “My legs are getting tangled up, and I think a thistle just scratched me.” 

Mac shakes his head. He’s not having too much trouble with the kilt itself, but his legs are  _ cold _ . He can feel himself starting to shiver.  _ This weather is bad enough without having wind and rain blowing directly on my legs.  _

He can’t help but wonder if his ancestor was at the exact place he is now, part of this battle.  _ How old was he when all this happened? _ Mac can understand being young and idealistic and risking everything for it. _ And both of us paid a high price. _ He’d done some research while he was on the airplane, about the Jacobite rebellion and the aftermath, and it’s painful to say the least. Many of the captured rebels were executed, even more died in prison waiting for their trials, and then there were plenty like their past Angus who were transported to the colonies.  _ He probably watched friends, maybe family, people he fought beside, die. On the battlefield and then in prison. _ He shivers again as another gust of wind drives rain against him.  _ I can’t imagine spending hours in weather like this every single day. _

Riley’s voice buzzes through comms.  _ Well, these certainly aren’t period accurate.  _ “If we split up, we can cover more of the area. Bozer and I will work the crowd, but if he’s planning to use the cannon fire as his dispersal method, he’s probably dressed as one of the reenactors.” 

“And he’ll want to get there well before the whole thing starts,” Bozer adds. “Tommie doesn’t strike me as the suicidal type. He doesn’t want to get infected too; he doesn’t know what this is or how fast it spreads.”

“Actually, neither do we,” Riley says. “Not really.”  

“She’s right,” Jack says, and Mac tries to grin, ignoring the sinking feeling in his stomach at the thought of being separated from Jack.  _ That’s not even logical. He’s not going to be that far away.  _ But Mac’s well aware of how some of the bystanders are staring at him, men and women both. He knows Jack wouldn’t let anyone get near him, but he can’t be watching his own back and looking for O’Connell. 

But then Jack is gone, with a final squeeze to Mac’s shoulder, melting into the crowd. Mac allows himself a single convulsive shudder, half from the eyes on him and half from the rain dripping off his hair and down his neck, and then starts walking. 

Mac’s making his way toward the area where the cannons are set up, trying to stay in the middle of the crowd so he’s less easy to notice, when he feels someone tugging on his sleeve. He jumps and then turns to see a girl, probably college age, with a friend behind her. Both of them look very excited and a little too enthusiastic. He takes a step back instinctively. 

“Hey, can I get a picture with you?” the first girl asks.   _ I can’t.  _ It’s not a great idea for a covert operative to have photos of themselves floating around. Sure, some stray background images are one thing, and Riley’s going to have to do one heck of a scrub job after this op, but this…

“I really can’t…”

“Oh, come on, five seconds. I just wanna show everyone back at school. They’re gonna be so jealous I met a real Highlander.” Mac chokes on a nervous laugh.  _ I’m actually not... _ He wants to refuse, but he also doesn’t want to argue with this girl and draw attention to himself. So he just nods. 

The girl grins and hands her phone to her friend, stepping in beside him and awkwardly pushing herself under his arm so it’s laying across her shoulder. She puts her arm around her waist and grins at the camera. Mac forces a stiff, uncomfortable smile and hopes this is over soon. 

Her free hand is sliding uncomfortably low on his back. Mac jumps aside, feeling a shudder slide up his spine that has nothing to do with the chilly rain. Maybe it was nothing, maybe it was a mistake, but after the way he’s been stared at...he just can’t.

“Hey, what…” The girl mutters. He takes advantage of her confusion and rushes off, hoping to blend into the crowd. It takes a few minutes and a few deep breaths before he feels comfortable enough to keep going, and he’s viscerally aware of every accidental collision from the crowd around him. He’s pushed himself more into the reenactors now, away from the spectators.  _ Where is Jack? _

“Uh, Ri?” He tries to keep the shiver out of his voice. “The reenactors don’t have phones, but the crowd is taking a lot of pictures. Maybe one of them caught O’Connell.”

“Sounds like we’ll have better luck trying to spot him there than what Bozer and I are doing.” Riley says. “It’s still a long shot, that’s a ton of photos to scan and some of the phones will be harder to hack than others, but it’s the best we’ll get, probably.” 

Mac continues to push his way through the crowd. He thinks he hears a couple of whistles, and possibly a catcall, although with the combination of accents and words he doesn’t recognize he can see how Riley was confused about that guy she ran into earlier. He ignores all of it, simultaneously hoping it’s not directed at him and also feeling bad for hoping that because it means it was meant for one of the other guys out here. 

“I got him!” Riley says suddenly, and Mac jumps and flinches again, getting some odd looks from a couple of the nearby men. “Someone’s videotaping the bagpipers, and he’s walking behind them.”

“I can’t hear ya, Ri!” Jack shouts back. “I’m right next to a buncha guys playing bagpipes! You’ll have to speak up!”

“Jack’s right there, I’m going to him,” Mac says. It’s not too hard to follow the sound. He can see Jack pacing around nearby, and he hurries over to him. It’s probably just his imagination, but he feels warmer and safer just being near Jack. 

“Hey! Riley found our guy, he should be right around here,” Mac says when he’s close enough to get Jack’s attention without looking suspicious. He glances around, then catches sight of someone vaguely matching the description.  _ And he’s headed for the row of cannons. That’s got to be our man. _ Mac’s learned enough about situation awareness and threat identification to be able to tell that this is a man on a mission. He’s not stopping to talk to anyone, and he’s not looking at anything but the place he’s intending to go.

O’Connell has a decent head start on them, but the one thing working in their favor is that apparently the local police expect there to be people who want to get too close to dangerous explosives. There are several officers patrolling around the area, and Mac knows it’s probably going to take O’Connell a few minutes to figure out how to get past them. 

Mac notices the way the main’s fingers keep straying to the leather pouch around his waist. “There’s no pockets in these things, he must have the vial in that  _ sporran. _ ” 

“Okay, well then, genius, we need to figure out how to get that away from him.” Jack glances at him. “If you can get close enough, can you just cut it free?”

“I don’t have my knife on me. There weren’t  _ pockets. _ ” Mac has never realized how much he depends on those. Everything he does relies on him being able to carry around a random assortment of things, sometimes stuff he finds along the way. 

“Dude, how many times are you gonna complain about that?” Jack asks. Mac starts to say something smart, but then flinches when someone bumps up against him. “Hey, you okay, kiddo?” Jack asks. 

_ I’m fine. He didn’t mean to run into me, it was an accident... _ And then Mac suddenly knows exactly how they’re going to do this. “I...uh, I just know what we have to do.”

They start walking toward O’Connell, making their way through the growing crowd. Everyone is starting to move together now, toward the opposite end of the field. Mac guesses the reenactment of the battle is about to start, and it feels like wading the wrong way through waves. It’s not even hard to fake a stumble the next time he walks past one of the men who’s got a visible knife tucked into his stocking, and when he catches himself, and is pushed back upright by the man he stumbled into, he’s slipping the knife into his own sleeve. 

“Och, watch where ye’re goin’ there, laddie,” the man chuckles. Mac’s just glad he didn’t make a scene. 

“Jack,” he whispers, “You distract him, I’ll get the vial. Once we have it, Riley can let those officers know there’s a very wanted man right in front of them, and they can arrest him without risking releasing the virus.” 

Jack nods, then walks up to O’Connell, who turns and glares at him. “Excuse me, man, but the battle is that way,” Jack says, grabbing their mark’s shoulder and starting to turn him.  _ Jack, your accent is horrible, just stop. _ If he’s been doing this the whole time, Mac’s surprised he didn’t get himself kicked out. 

The man starts to push back against Jack, and while he’s distracted, Mac collides with him, slitting the strap of the  _ sporran  _ and pulling it away. 

“Okay, fine, you want to get in trouble with the guys in charge, don’t blame me. They’ve got literal swords, I wouldn’t argue with ‘em,” Jack says, letting go and joining Mac. “Dude, can I tell Riley to send in the cavalry?” 

Mac holds up the leather pouch. “Got it.” He opens the flap, terrified that he’s going to find shattered glass and that it’s too late. But there’s only a small clear tube in the bottom of the pouch, still visibly sealed.  He breathes a shaky sigh of relief. “It’s still intact. The bacteria is contained. Riley can have O’Connell arrested now. But better be more specific and tell Riley to get the police,” He adds, chuckling. “There might  _ actually _ be cavalry around here.” 

He and Jack step out of the field, hoping to avoid being entangled with the actual reenactment, and a few minutes later Jack sees the officers collectively abandon their posts, snatch a confused and blustering O’Connell, and cuff him, just as the last of the reenactors, a large British regiment, pass. 

“Guys?” Mac jumps at Bozer’s voice from behind them. “I can’t believe you actually got it.” 

“I’ve got the canister.” Riley holds it out, and Mac slips the vial inside. The lid closes with a whooshing click. There’s a collective sigh of relief, and then Mac hears a chaos of shouts and false gunfire from the other end of the clearing. 

“Uh, we should probably go before we become the only people with computers and cell phones in the middle of a battle from the 1700s,” Riley says, and Mac nods. “Wait. Before you two have a chance to run off on me, I need a picture.” She pulls out her phone. 

“Oh, no,” Jack groans. “Really, Ri?”

“How many times am I gonna get a chance like this?” Riley asks. “You’d rather have me take the picture when you know I’m gonna do it, right? Otherwise I’ll just have to lag behind and send the ones I get then to Matty.” 

“Okay, okay,” Jack says. Mac sighs. After his earlier experience, he’s not thrilled, but this is with his family, and they’re never going to hurt or humiliate him, they’re just teasing each other because that’s what family does. And besides, it  _ is _ kind of fun, now that they’re not trying to prevent the apocalypse again, and he’s not being whistled at and groped by random strangers.   

“Say ‘haggis’,” Bozer laughs as Riley holds up her phone and Jack puts an arm around Mac’s shoulders. Jack makes a face, and Mac groans.

Riley’s laughing. “Okay, that’s fantastic, but I want a good one too.” Jack smiles, pulling Mac a little closer, and Mac grins. “Perfect!” 

* * *

“Well, MI6 has both Milhouse and O’Connell in custody, and Matty managed to get them to agree to dropping the charges for us breaking into the lab,” Riley says as soon as Mac and Jack step out of the shed, now dressed in their street clothes again. She’s not taking the chance of returning them to the trailer surrounded by sword-toting Scots. She’ll leave them at this house with a note. The only evidence of who’s responsible for said theft is resting safely in Riley’s phone.  _ I really couldn’t pass up the opportunity. _

“O’Connell flipped, he’s your typical merc,” she continues. “He wasn’t going to get paid anymore, not with his employer behind bars, so he decided to try cooperating with the authorities instead. Milhouse hired him to steal the canister and release it. He didn’t know what was inside; he got pretty pissed when he found out it would have killed him no matter what precautions he took. Milhouse was some kind of martyr to her cause. And according to some papers found in her notes, that cause was ridding the world of the humanity she felt was destroying it, forcing everything to start over without us. She’d modified the bacteria to only be lethal to humans, or at least that’s what the notes claim.” 

“So Dr. Milhouse decided a more effective way of cleaning up landfills was to eliminate the people who created them in the first place.” Jack shrugs. “The Brits sure know how to grow their dramatic villains, I’ll give ‘em that. That was a plot straight outta James Bond.” 

“Why go to all the trouble of hiring someone else to steal it for her?” Bozer asks. “She could have just walked out with it herself any time, right?” 

“Apparently it wouldn’t be the first time she’d played fast and loose with a dangerous experiment,” Riley says. “Or at least that’s what the MI6 reports are saying. She was under a strict search policy whenever she left the lab, but she was making too many breakthroughs for them to want to let her go. And off the record, it was probably also a way to keep tabs on her.” She shrugs. “Chose a day she was out of the area, clearly couldn’t be suspected of involvement, cops wouldn’t figure it out until it was much too late...it probably would have worked if we hadn’t happened to turn up.”

“What can I say, I enjoy wrecking people’s plans,” Jack says. “Especially crazy people who want to destroy the world.” 

Riley’s phone pings and she pulls it out and glances at it. “It’s Matty.” She reads through the text, then frowns. “Apparently, that leniency she got us is conditional upon us leaving the country as soon as possible,” Riley says. “Sorry, Mac.”

Mac shrugs. “It’s kind of my fault in the first place. And I found what I came to.” He glances at Jack. “Let’s go home.” 

* * *

SOMEWHERE OVER THE ATLANTIC

NOT A GOOD PLACE TO GET A LEG CRAMP

There are plenty of good reasons Jack Dalton hates flying commercial. The biggest one is the complete and utter lack of legroom.  _ Granted, we had to get tickets at the last possible minute, and the only seats left were in Economy Class, but still. _ He’s trying to get some sleep, he’s tired and still vaguely chilled and he just wants to curl up under the thin scratchy blanket and get some shut-eye. Jet lag never gets easier.

He also hates commercial because he can’t sit next to the rest of his team. Riley is leaning on a window, eyes closed and hair covering her face. Bozer is several rows in front of him, headphones in, probably listening to music on his phone. And Mac...Mac is three rows behind him, in the aisle seat, leaning back and looking if not comfortable, at least asleep. 

Jack leans back again.  _ Maybe I can bore myself to sleep. _ Riley’s computer bag is stowed near his feet since there wasn’t room to jam it in the overhead compartment and her neighbor is a woman with a baby and a very large diaper bag that took up too much room for Riley to comfortably put her own gear there.  _ I hate last minute booking.  _ But Riley was doing a ton of sorting through those old documents, maybe if he reads a couple census lists he’ll be able to put himself out. 

Unfortunately, the more he scrolls through the collection of historical data Riley’s compiled, the more interesting it gets. Aside from the census roster and the one noting the list of transported prisoners and also listing occupation, height, and vague physical description (Jack flinches a little at seeing the past Angus noted as ‘light hair, fair faced, slender’; then glances behind him at the boy who could easily fit the same description), there are countless letters detailing the British response to the insurrection, the treatment of the prisoners, and even a letter asking for pardons for rebels who would agree to join the British army. 

Jack sets down the computer.  _ Clearly the kid’s great-whatever-granddad didn’t agree to that.  _ But it sounds an awful lot like the deal  _ Jack _ walked into a California supermax with.  _ Work for us, and we can get you out of this place. _ He’s glad present-day Mac took the deal he was offered.  _ He didn’t have to trust us. But he did. _ Even if it was only just a little. _ Then again, we weren’t askin’ Mac to join the people who were the reason he was in that prison in the first place... _

He leans back against the seat and closes his eyes. He really does need to try and get some sleep. 

_ Jack pulls the lathered horse under him to a halt, then slides off. He hopes he’s managed to get here before the transfer, the letter in his pocket is important. He stops at the gate and calls to the guard inside. “I need to talk to whoever’s in charge here.” _

_ “That’d be the colonel, just a moment, sergeant.” Jack frowns.  _ Something about all this is really odd. _ He looks down at his uniform, for a minute he could have sworn it was some sort of strange dusty tan and grey, but no, it’s the bright crimson it should be. Or shouldn’t be. It doesn’t seem right.  _

_ He shakes off the feeling when the gate guard returns with the man who must be the colonel. Jack doesn’t really recognize him at all, the man seems...forgettable. He shrugs, and he doesn’t remember the guard opening the gate for him but he’s inside now, walking with the colonel toward a low building with bars on the windows. _

The letter. Right. _ He pulls it out and hands it to the colonel, who scans it quickly and then laughs. “Good luck getting any of them to agree to that, sergeant. That’s a bullheaded crowd of rascals if I ever saw them.”  _

_ Jack takes the letter back. He can’t remember what it said himself.  _ Oh, right. Orders for releasing and pardoning any of the prisoners willing to join up. _ “Orders are orders, sir. Have to try.” _

_ “Very well.” The man unlocks the door to the building and lets Jack inside. Jack covers his nose at the unbearable stench.  _ How many men are they keeping down here? _ The cells must be full to over their capacity. He can hear men coughing, groaning, and gasping, chains rattling and rats squeaking. He blinks, trying to get his eyes to adjust to the darkness.  _ This is like that hole in Bangladesh… _ He blinks again, because how did that memory make it in here?  _ That’s not right… _ A thought skitters on the edge of his mind like one of those rats in the shadows, but it’s gone before he can catch onto it.  _

_ He stops in front of one of the cells, he can’t explain why. The men inside are either pacing or sitting on the floor; all of them are grimy and unshaven and thin. Jack’s looking past them, though, to where he can hear the clanking of chains in the back corner. In the shadows, barely visible, there’s someone shackled to the wall. The person shifts, and Jack catches a glimpse of familiar messy blond hair and frightened blue eyes.  _

Mac? _ Jack has to lean closer and take a second look before he’s sure his eyes aren’t playing a joke on him.  _ What is he doing here? _ Mac is so horribly skinny, and he’s wearing the same clothes he was at the reenactment, except that now they’re torn and filthy and stained with blood. He’s covered in bruises and his wrists, where the chains rub, are raw and bleeding.  _ How did he get here, what happened to him? _ At the back of his mind Jack knows he knows, but everything’s blurred and confused and nothing makes sense. All he’s sure of is that his kid is in this horrible prison and he  _ doesn’t deserve to be.

_ “Why is that man in the corner chained up?” Jack asks, rounding on the colonel with anger and fists ready to fly.  _ If he’s the one who hurt my kid… 

_ “That one’s a troublemaker, sergeant. Tried to escape three times already, and very nearly made it out. He’ll use anything he can get his hands on. Had to make sure he wouldn’t do it again.” Jack blinks, because the colonel’s face isn’t the same now. Or at least he suddenly recognizes the man.  _ Jonah Walsh. _ The same man who let Mac go to prison last time because he was playing a game to catch James, who traded Mac away to another agency like he was nothing but a tool.   _

_ Jack clenches a fist and slams it into the man’s cheek. He ignores Walsh’s angry outburst, snatches the keys off his belt, and opens the cell door. Somehow, he and Mac are the only ones in here now, but he’s not focusing on that, he’s trying to find the key to get Mac out of these chains. _

_ “J-jack?” Mac whispers weakly, looking up at him. Up close, the poor kid looks even worse; his cheeks are hollow, his eyes are bright with fever, and Jack’s pretty sure he can see something alive crawling in the kid’s hair. This place is horrible and he has to get Mac out.  _

_ “Yeah, kiddo, it’s me, I’m here, it’s okay.” He unlocks the chains and lifts Mac into his arms, ignoring the awful smell of infected wounds and filth, and the feeling of something crawling over his hands. He turns toward the door, but Walsh is standing there blocking the way.  _

_ “Thank you for putting yourself where you belong,” the man says, then slams the door. Mac flinches at the clang, curling deeper into Jack’s shoulder. Jack leans against the bars with a defeated sigh. _

_ “I’m sorry, Mac, I’m so sorry I failed you.” He slides down until he’s sitting, holding Mac gently against him.  _

_ “It’s okay,” Mac whispers, and he’s looking up at Jack with so much trust that he doesn’t deserve, Jack is tempted to cry. “You came.” He gives Jack a weak smile. “So it’s okay.”  _

There’s a sharp cry. Jack blinks, flailing, he’s confused and he doesn’t know why someone is shaking him and  _ where is Mac? _ And then he realizes no one is shaking him. They’re caught in some kind of turbulence, the plane is bouncing around. He doesn’t know if the cry that woke him up was part of his dream or something real. And then he hears a gasping sob that he recognizes only too well.  _ I’m not the only one having a nightmare. _

“I’m sorry, I can’t!” Mac cries out, and Jack unbuckles his seatbelt, ignoring the flight attendant shouting at him to sit down, that it’s not safe to be in the aisles in this weather. Jack’s already on his feet, hurrying down the aisle. He crouches down on the floor, wincing at the fear and pain in the kid’s face. “Mac? Mac, hey, kid, wake up. It’s me.” 

* * *

Mac leans back against his seat. He’s exhausted and in fourteen hours they’ll be landing in LA, where he’s going to probably have to face Patty and Matty, who will both be less than pleased.  _ Saving the world never gets us a free pass on a lecture. _ And yes, there were less destructive ways to get that door open, but it would have taken too long…

He wishes he could put off the inevitable mild scolding, even though it’s just for appearance’s sake, but not enough to wish he was traveling to America the way his great-great-great-great...he’s too tired to figure it out right now...grandfather did. He’s not sure he’s ever going to be able to get on a ship again, not after… after Zoe. He thinks about her enough as it is. 

He doesn’t want one of those nightmares tonight. He tries to push Zoe’s brave smile and wide brown eyes out of his mind. He just needs to sleep. Even thinking about the past is better than thinking about that. He curls up in his chair, wrapping his arms around himself, and closes his eyes…

_ The ship is tossing. Mac can hear the wind whipping through shredded sails, slamming waves against the hull. There’s water coming in from above, he’s soaked and shivering in the cold darkness. He hates being cold and wet but that’s all his life has become.  _

_ The ship timbers creak with each wave that flings them from side to side, and the filthy water that’s seeped in sloshes back and forth around Mac’s feet. All around him, he can hear people coughing, groaning, praying for the storm to end. He wonders where Jack is, because Jack is always here when he’s in this much trouble. But he doesn’t hear Jack’s voice anywhere.  _

_ He just wants Jack to come and fix this. Jack would make them let him go, he’d tell them Mac didn’t do anything wrong. He has to find Jack. Mac tries to stand up, but the ship is rocking too much and the chains around his wrists and ankles are so heavy.  _ When did those get there? _ He fumbles with them, trying to get them off. He’s scared, he feels trapped and even more confined now, and he’s tied up and helpless if anyone wants to hurt him…   _

_ There’s a massive cracking sound and Mac stiffens. He can hear water rushing now, coming through split boards. All around him people are screaming, he can feel the first swirls of the icy black water lashing at his legs. The rats are running, squeaking and scuffling as they rush upward in search of safety. But they’re in the middle of the ocean, there’s nowhere to run.   _

_ He knows it’s useless to struggle. There’s nowhere to go, not in a storm like this, and they’re all chained up. No one is really going to care if they live or die. He feels the water rising and he knows this is where he’s going to die. He can’t get out, he can’t escape, there’s nothing left.  _

_ The water is so cold.  _ “Colder than I thought it would be,”  _ he doesn’t really know who that voice in his head is. He knows her, how does he know her?  _

_ He blinks again, and now there’s light. He can actually see, now, but it’s not any less confusing than it was when he couldn’t. The ship...looks wrong, it’s a strange twisted mixture of wooden supports and metal hull.  _ This is wrong. _ But as wrong as it is, he’s here, right now. _

_ There’s the sound of a door slamming, and he looks up to see Zoe’s face through the glass.  _ That door didn’t have glass like that... _ His mind is trying to pull all the little inconsistencies together, to tell him something, but there’s no time for that, because Zoe is locked behind that door and it should be him and he has to get her out.  _

_ He pounds on the door. “Zoe, I can do this. Get out of there!” The water is rising so fast. It’s to his waist already, his feet are numb from the cold. They have to seal that door right now.  _

_ “No, Mac, it has to be me.” She’s lit the match, and then he watches as she touches it to the resin. There’s a hiss and then the water stops flowing.  _

_ He can’t open the door now. If he does, he’ll make everything she’s sacrificed be for nothing.  _ But honestly, it won’t even matter. I can do the math. We’ve taken on too much water. We can’t last another hour.  _ The college kids are on the top level, they might make it if they can stay warm in the lifeboats long enough. But Mac is already soaked to the skin and hypothermic, he’s not going to survive. There’s no point in leaving now. He stands there, outside the door, and presses a hand to the glass.  _

_ “Zoe.” He can’t save her, he can’t even save himself. “I’m gonna stay with you, okay?” _

_ “Mac, no, please no. Go, now. I don’t want you to die too,” she says, and she’s crying now. The ship pitches violently, and water splashes everywhere, covering Mac’s head for a moment, and he chokes on the salty liquid that’s filled his mouth. He’s so, so cold.  _

_ “I can’t. I’m sorry, I can’t.” Jack is going to be so upset.  _ He’s going to be angry that he wasn’t here to save me. _ Jack always saves him. But not this time.  _

“Mac. Mac!” _ But that’s Jack’s voice. Mac looks around frantically, but he doesn’t see Jack anywhere.  _ Don’t come down here, don’t die too. Please, not for me. _ He shivers harder, leaning against the door. It’s so cold. _

“Mac! Mac, wake up.” There’s a warm hand on his arm, so warm it’s almost scorching. Mac blinks, eyes flickering open. He tries to turn around, only for his elbow to slam into something solid and soft. He shakes his head, wincing at the stomach-dropping roll of the waves underneath them...but he can’t hear the water rushing anymore. His fumbling hands find rubber-coated seatrests and and he can hear the soft drone of engines and the flow of wind, not water, around them. He’s not drowning or freezing, he’s not even on a ship. He’s on a plane. 

He shivers again, and then feels Jack tucking something warm around him; the blanket is thin and not very soft, but still comforting after the phantom feeling of drowning in icy water. “Hey, kiddo, that must have been one heck of a nightmare,” Jack says, and then the plane jolts and shudders again. “We’re just hitting a little turbulence, some kinda storm under us.”

“Oh.” Mac tries to relax, he can still feel the water choking him, still feel the phantom chains around his wrists, still see Zoe’s frightened eyes, pleading with him to leave. He glances at the seat next to him, at the woman who’s looking at him with concern and pity. “I’m sorry, I…”

“It’s alright,” She says gently, and Mac catches a trace of the same accent he’s been surrounded by for the past few days. “Nothin’ to be ashamed of.” He smiles a little, then turns back to Jack. 

Jack says nothing, just rests his hand gently on Mac’s wrist, then pulls a couple paperclips out of his pocket and hands them to Mac. “In case you can’t sleep,” he says gently. 

Mac nods and takes them, tucking them into a pocket. But with Jack beside him, and that comforting hand on his arm, he’s asleep again even before the storm is over. 

* * *

BLACK SITE

LOCATION: CLASSIFIED

Jack doesn’t have any less of an inclination to punch Walsh in the face than he has any other time he’s thought about that man. The difference is that this time, Walsh is sitting across a table from them. Jack takes a vicious kind of pleasure in seeing him in the prison orange.  _ But this isn’t even a fraction of the same kind of hell Mac went through because of him. _

“Well, well, well. Jack Dalton and Mini Mac, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Walsh asks. His smile is cold. 

“We need to know everything you know about my father,” Mac says. He’s insisted on taking point in the interrogation, and Jack’s willing to let him, as long as things don’t get too out of hand. 

“So you’re starting to understand how hard it really is to catch that son of a bitch,” Walsh shakes his head. “Come back in another ten years and tell me how it’s going. I’ll be right here.” 

“We actually have a chance of catching him, now.” Mac’s keeping his voice steady, making sure not to let anything the other man says affect him.  _ He’s come a long way.  _ Life hasn’t been kind to the kid lately, or ever, really, but he’s so strong. Jack’s watched him go from a bitter, isolated boy to a skilled, formidable agent, and he’s so incredibly proud. 

“What do you want to know?”

“Anything you can tell us. You hunted him for over a decade. We want to know about every safe house you found, every contact you dug up…”

“You want that, all you have to do is go through his file,” Walsh leans back, cuffs rattling against the table. “But you already know that.” He raises an eyebrow. 

“You didn’t list everything in that file,” Mac continues. “Not after you went rogue. You couldn’t exactly report information you found out from someone you were working with on the black market.”

“Smart kid.” Walsh chuckles. “You’re a lot like your old man, you know that?”

“I’m nothing like him.” Mac’s fist is clenched tightly now.  _ Easy, kid, don’t let him rile you up. _ Mac’s been doing so well this far. 

“Even if I did tell you, it wouldn’t do any good. No one works with him long, and he never uses the same safe house twice.  The only thing predictable about James MacGyver is that he’s unpredictable.” Walsh snorts. “I saw that coming long before he went dark. Man was a loose cannon for years.”

_ A loose cannon with a son he abused and mistreated. _ Jack’s still angry that no one ever thought to see whether Mac was alright.  _ Maybe if someone had stepped in, if someone had spent a little more time watching for the signs, maybe Mac’s life would have been different.  _ Or maybe it would have been even worse. Jack hates the thought of the kid being pulled out of his home, of Harry for one reason or another denied custody. Of Mac bouncing around the foster system, running away time and again because he just didn’t fit in. _ Any way this could have gone hurt him. _ And it’s so unfair.

“When your mother died, he changed.” Walsh shakes his head. “Not that I’m surprised. In a way, what happened to her was his fault.”

“That’s impossible,” Mac whispers. “She died in a car accident, she was alone in the vehicle, how could he...” 

“That’s what they told you. Because who would tell a child that their mother was blown up to get revenge on their father?” Walsh shakes his head. “That was always the official story, but everyone at the agency knew what it was. Your father had spearheaded an op the year before where three agents were killed. One of them had a father who worked there as well. Eliot Mason swore he was going to make James pay for the loss of his son. Guess that bomb was intended to take care of you  _ and _ your mother.” 

Jack can tell Mac’s struggling not to completely lose it right now, so he steps in. “So Mason killed her, and then James went on some kind of quest for vengeance?” 

“She was everything good about him,” Walsh says. “Soon as she was gone, he started to spiral. Even after we put Mason in a cell and threw away the key, he couldn’t let go.”

“Sounds like you didn’t learn from his mistake,” Jack mutters sarcastically. 

Walsh glares at him. “I don’t think I want to talk to you people anymore,” He says, pushing away from the table. “We’re done.”

Jack can tell it’s a negotiation tactic. Walsh used Jack’s insult as an excuse to pretend he was done, so he can force them to offer him something to keep talking. _ Well, unluckily for you, I don’t want to keep talking to you. You already broke my kid’s heart again. You’re lucky to be walking away with all your teeth. _

Jack waits until they’re out in the hall to really look at Mac. The kid’s shaking, and the second the guard walks away he collapses against the wall as if he’s not going to be able to hold himself up anymore. Jack turns to face him, and when Mac looks up, his eyes are glossy with tears. 

“I was sick,” Mac says suddenly. “She was going to get cold medicine, well, different than what we had because what she gave me the first time made me really dizzy.”  _ Even as a kid you didn’t do well on medications, huh? _ “I was coughing so much she didn’t want to take me with her and infect the whole drugstore.” He swallows hard. “She didn’t come home. And I was thirsty, and I kept listening for the door so she could come in and get me something to drink, but then…” He looks down. “Then I heard someone knocking, and then Mr. Wilson, the police officer I knew because he came and talked at school once, he asked if there was anyone home and could they open the door.” He sniffles. “I got up and I was so dizzy I fell over and the next thing I knew he was picking me up and putting me on the couch and I could hear him on the phone with someone, probably James. I kept asking him where Mom was and he wouldn’t tell me, he said she was going to be gone a while and that my dad was going to explain when he got home. He sat with me until James got back, and he got me some orange juice and kept putting a damp cloth on my head, and then he left.” Mac takes a deep breath. “And after that, everything’s kind of a blur. I...um...James yelled at me when I asked where Mom was, I remember that. He told me she was dead, she wasn’t coming back, and then he told me to stop crying because that didn’t help.” 

“Mac, I am so, so sorry,” Jack says softly. “Oh kiddo.” 

“I couldn’t sleep that night because I was crying and my throat hurt and I couldn’t stop coughing,” Mac says. “And I remember at the funeral James kept slapping my arm for sneezing and coughing during it.” His voice trails off, and he leans against the wall. 

“Hey, kiddo, you’re okay.” Jack’s heart shatters at the thought of a five year old Mac already experiencing James’s cold cruelty, deprived of the gentle kindness of the only parent who was good to him. “I’m sorry that happened.” 

Mac shrugs. “It’s over. But...I think I figured out where the next clue is.”

Jack can tell Mac feels like he’s said too much and wants to change the subject now. “Awesome. Where is it?”

“My mom’s gravesite.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a ton of fun doing research for this. And stumbled across the British National Archives' online collection of documents from the Jacobite Rebellion, which includes the passenger manifests and letters requesting pardons that Jack and Riley mention. In case anyone's like me and is interesting in looking at the real history behind this, here's the link!
> 
> http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/jacobite-1745/


	14. CO2 Sensor+Tree Branch

###  213-CO2 Sensor + Tree Branch

MISSION CITY CEMETERY

PLOT 137

It’s raining. Jack thinks that feels a bit cliche. It’s always raining in every movie when people visit cemeteries. Or at least that’s what it seems like. He can barely see the car parked by the road through the grey haze. 

His ears are cold, and water’s dripping down the back of his neck. Mac looks a lot more miserable. The kid’s shivering in spite of his sweater, leather jacket, and the scarf wrapped around his neck. But worse than that, his eyes look so haunted. He’s staring at the grey stone in front of them, and Jack’s not sure if all the water running down his face is rain.  _ Probably not. _

“Kiddo, you okay?” he asks, putting an arm around Mac’s shoulder. Mac is trembling, but he leans into Jack’s side and seems to be a little steadier. 

“I haven’t been here since...um...since…” Mac kicks a shoe against the ground. “Um, since James left. But he used to come here every Saturday. He always brought me with him. But...I always hated it. It felt like...like he loved her more than me, even though all he was talking to was a cold stone in the ground.” He sniffs. “So...um...after he left I never came back.” 

“Mac, it’s fine. Everyone grieves differently. People think I’m crazy because I go talk to Pops.”  _ But Riley never ever felt like I cared more about him than the people in my life here and now. _ He has the sudden horrible thought that maybe to Mac, that reminds him of what James did. “Kiddo, does it look like that to you when I…”

“No.” Mac’s so quick to cut him off that it seems like the kid’s been thinking the same thing. “First time I saw you there, it felt odd, but then you...uh...just sort of introduced me to him, and...and you were saying good things about me.” He shrugs. “James just complained that Mom left him with a kid he didn’t know how to manage. Said he needed her to deal with me.”

“Oh Mac.” It’s the worst kind of unfair.  _ He made Mac feel like a burden and turned every bit of comfort from his memories of his mother against him.  _ He holds the kid a little tighter. “He didn’t know what to do with you because he didn’t know how to love. She did. That’s what he was missing.” 

“It’s not what’s missing,” Mac says suddenly, seeming to snap out of his stupor and bending down in front of the stone. “It’s what’s been added.”

“Uh, not really followin’ ya, kiddo?” 

Mac looks up at him, frowning. “These flowers, next to the ivy. They’re not part of the original design.” 

There’s practically a whole garden etched on the bottom of the stone. “You’ve been gone a long time, Mac, you sure?” Jack thinks he might need his glasses just to identify the plants there. 

“I saw this stone every week for five years. And scrubbed it once a month. I’m sure.” Mac leans down, tracing the design, then pulling out his phone and snapping a few photos from different angles. “Lily of the valley. It grew wild down by the creeks and Mom transplanted a bunch into her garden. It was everywhere by the time I remember.” He shakes his head. “But James always called it a weed.”

“So why would he etch it on that stone?” Jack asks.

“I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”

* * *

PHOENIX MEDICAL

HOPEFULLY THE LAST SAM IS SEEING OF IT FOR A WHILE

Sam blushes at the clapping when she walks out of medical under her own power. Her whole team is there cheering her on. Jack is whistling like he’s at a football game, and Riley and Linsey are cheering. She’s not sure but she thinks Mac and Bozer might both be crying.

“Congratulations, Agent Cage,” Patty says, smiling. Sam can’t remember the last time she’s had this many people worried about her for no other reason than that they’re her friends.  _ It’s not because I was a valuable asset out of commission, it’s because I was family to them.  _

“You really didn’t have to,” she says when Bozer holds out a box with a “Welcome Back Sam” iced on top. 

“Mac helped,” Bozer says. “And by that I mean he made the automatic icing piper. That’s why the letters are all so uniform.” Sam grins. She’s never been one for making her food look anything but edible but she has to admit Bozer has talent.  _ If he ever gets out of making prosthetics he has a future in a bakery. _

“So when are you gonna be out of PT and strapping on the holster again?” Jack asks. “Team isn’t the same without you. And you missed me in a skirt in Scotland.”

“Kilt,” Mac groans, sounding aggrieved. 

“Oh don’t worry, Riley showed me pictures.” Sam chuckles. “For the record, you both looked great.” She sighs. “But unfortunately I’ll be transitioning out of field operations for the forseeable future.” It stings, when she was just able to go back, but chances are that even with rehab she might not be field capable again. And she can’t justify turning herself into a liability for her teammates. 

“Gonna miss you out there,” Jack says. “Hey, maybe I’ll actually get to use more than one mag on a mission again.” 

“Riley, better start getting your range practice in. Now it’s up to you to outshoot Jack,” Sam chuckles. “Now, who wants to try this cake?” 

They’re all sitting around a table in the lunchroom, enjoying Bozer’s cooking, when Linsey stands up. “Guys, it’s been fantastic. But if I don’t leave now I’ll never make it through LA traffic in time to catch my flight.”

“I’ll see you in a couple months then,” Sam says, giving Linsey’s hand a firm squeeze, then pulling her in into their long-forgotten sister secret handshake. 

“What’s in a couple months?” Bozer asks.

“My wedding,” Linsey says, all smiles, showing the ring on her finger. “Sam’s going to be my maid of honor. She promised me she would, a long time ago, and I’m going to hold her to it.” Sam watches Linsey walk away, then turns back to the others, smiling.  _ Thanks to this little family, I found the only blood family I have left. _

She shakes her head when she sees Riley trying to steal frosting off Jack’s slice of cake with her fork, and Mac drawing some sort of diagram on his empty plate, in blue frosting, to make a point to Patty about something he’s building, and Matty and Bozer discussing the best ways to prevent a cake from falling (she figured out early on in her interviews with Matty that the woman is a stress baker). 

She’s going to miss field ops with her team. But she won’t be leaving the Phoenix itself.  _ It’ll only be like it was before Tennant got put away.  _ She’s not going far.  

* * *

PHOENIX LABS

IT’S JUST A THINK TANK TO CIVILIANS...LIKE THE LAWSONS

Mac can’t stop smiling. Valerie’s wide-eyed amazement and giant grin are infectious.  _ She’s like a kid in a candy store. Like I was the first time I walked in here. _ Except for Val it’s even better because no one is staring at her wondering who let someone dangerous come here, and Jill is in charge now and she’s perfectly fine with letting Valerie roam around.  _ We did put away all the really dangerous stuff... _

“I can’t believe I get to go to a real robotics competition.” She’s walking all around the Phoenix’s drone that’s going to be entered.

“Not just a robotics competition,” Riley says. “We’re building a vehicular combat drone for DARPA's Korman Challenge. The competition's been going on for years, but nothing from Phoenix has ever won.” Phoenix didn’t enter a team last year, the challenge was happening right after the whole Chrysalis disaster, and even if they had gone, Mac wouldn’t have been able to, he was still in the infirmary recovering from Kazakhstan at that point. 

“The goal of the challenge is to prototype a fully autonomous military rescue vehicle,” Bozer adds. “This guy could someday do for ground troops what Predator drones have done for our Air Force.”

“If we could beat the CIA this year,” Riley reminds him. “And the NSA. And the DoD, JPL... 

“Which we absolutely will. Have some faith, guys,” Matty says, walking in. “This is our year. And you know why? Because this year we...have a secret weapon.” She holds up a bag and pulls something out. “We have not one but  _ two  _ robotics geniuses in the house.” She holds up a jacket that’s an exact miniature copy of the ones Mac, Riley, Bozer and Matty have for the challenge. 

Val’s eyes go wide. Mac drapes the jacket over her shoulders. “It’s a little large for you still, but you’ve got time to grow into it.” Valerie tugs the too-long sleeves over her hands, glancing at the “ **Phoenix Foundation-Korman Challenge** ” logo on the chest. 

“I can’t wait to show Mr. Ericson! He’s gonna be so proud of me!” She laughs and rushes over, wrapping her arms around Mac for a hug. He jumps at the unexpected contact but it’s only a tiny little flinch; he’s sure no one will notice. “I look like I work here. Just like you, Mac!” 

He grins and pats her shoulder. “Yeah. That’s pretty cool.” It feels so strange to have someone looking at him in that wide-eyed wonder and trust. To have someone want to be like him.  _ Most people who know anything about me keep their kids away from me. No one wants their kid to grow up to be a criminal. _ Even though he’s been cleared of the worst, he still carries that taint. 

But Valerie doesn’t see that. He wonders if she trusts him because her own father has broken the law more than once.  _ Maybe it should be concerning that she’s got criminals for role models.  _ But she is turning out pretty well. Mac stopped to see her and her dad when he was in town to look at his mom’s grave and Val told him she won a scholarship for a two-week summer robotics camp.  _ She’s going to go places. Change the world. _ Mac sometimes feels like he more or less ruined his shot at making a difference in that way, but at least he has the chance to inspire the next generation. He can’t say he regrets where he is now, it’s better than he could have dreamed of, but he’d like to see Val find her place in the world with a lot less lasting trauma attached to the journey. 

“Hang onto that. You might need it in another ten years or so,” Matty says. “We can always use minds like yours in a think tank.” 

“Is that a job offer, Ms. Webber?” Mr. Lawson asks, chuckling as he steps up behind Val and puts a hand on her shoulder. 

“The last kid I hired from Mission City’s done pretty well for us so far,” Matty smiles, and there’s the same parental pride in her face when she looks at Mac that he can see on Lawson’s. “I think I’d be more than willing to take a chance on another one.” 

“Okay, so let’s give you a quick rundown of our entry,” Bozer says, and Riley holds up a stack of papers. 

“I printed off the schematics so you’d have a chance to see any changes since the ones Mac sent you, and make some notes on them.” Val grins and grabs the papers, then follows Bozer over to the drone vehicle, watching him as he starts opening doors and talking about their work.

Mac glances over when Mr. Lawson comes up to stand next to him. “You know this means the world to her,” Lawson says, smiling as Val points to something on the front of the vehicle and then glances at the papers in her hand. “It’s all she’s been able to talk about since you called and told her she’d be able to come.”

Mac smiles. “I’m sure she’s going to love it.” 

“I truly can’t thank all of you enough,” Lawson says. “Thanks to you, I’m not in prison, my daughter isn’t in the foster system, and...she’s been thriving in school again.” He pulls out his phone and shows Mac a picture of Val grinning, standing between two other kids and all three of them holding up a robot arm that looks like the one she was working on tin Mr. Ericson’s class. He recognizes the boards from the treehouse wall in the background.  _ Looks like she’s doing well for herself. _

Val’s not so different than he was. An isolated, intelligent child reeling from the loss of a mother. But Val has a father who does love her.  _ He’s not perfect, but he’s trying. He supports her. _ He’s doing whatever he can to make sure she’s able to pursue the things she loves, he shows her that he’s interested in the things she loves.  _ He wouldn’t call her a burden or too much work. _

Mac can’t help but wonder if James would have even tried to get him back if Mac had been taken the way Valerie was. _ Would he have thought I was worth it? Risked everything like Lawson did? _ Mac can’t really bring himself to believe it.  _ What am I doing searching for a man who wouldn’t lift a finger to do that for me if I was in danger?  _

* * *

Jack leans on the War Room table.  _ I should have told them I’d go to the robot Hunger Games.  _ He’d almost rather risk his life with the future terminators than go to this thing.  _ I have nothing in common with most of those people. I don’t talk to most of them, and I only really send cards on Christmas to the ones I still keep in touch with. _ There’s not really a lot you can talk about besides the old days when everything you do is classified. And Jack doesn’t want to be one of those people who just relives their high school glory days.

The door opens, and Jack spins around to see Riley, Mac, and Bozer standing there. “Hey Jack, just wanted to say goodbye. I promise, no one is going to get killed by a robot!” Riley insists. “I promise. So there’s no reason to look so worried.” She glances up at the screen. “Right?”

“What's going on, Jack? Who's this guy? Assassin? Terrorist?” Bozer asks.  

“No. Worse. Way worse.” Jack glances up at the picture and files he’s managed to pull up. “Meet James LeRoy. Jimmy to his friends, and his enemies.”

“Did we just get a new mission?” Mac asks, starting to set down his duffel bag. 

“No. He's not a mission, Mac. That right there is my old high school nemesis.” 

“Seriously?” Bozer asks.  

“Look who finally decided to listen to me and go to his high school reunion. Good for you.” Riley chuckles, swinging her legs over the side of a chair. “Apparently, the same guy that used Phoenix resources to dig up dirt on an innocent civilian.” She raises an eyebrow. 

“Innocent? Who said he's innocent? That guy right there spent four years ruining my life.”

“What did he do, pound your face in behind the football bleachers?” Mac asks. “Or steal your clothes out of your locker while you were showering after track? Or smash out the windows on the meanest teacher’s car and then tell them it was you?” Jack has the feeling this is probably spoken from experience.  _ Damn, kid, my high school issues are nothing compared to yours. _ He knows Bozer tried to watch Mac’s back in school, but he couldn’t be there all the time.  _ And Mac’s always been exactly the type to be a prime target for people who want to hurt someone. _ Shy, nerdy pretty boy was hell in prison. It couldn’t have been much less of one in high school. Now Jack wants to find out who those jerks were and dig up some dirt on  _ them. _

“Nah. Just kept one-upping me. Every single time. When we both went out for class president, he won. We both go out for starting quarterback, he won. And when we were both up for "best hair," guess what?” 

“He won?” Bozer asks. 

“That's right. He won. And senior year, when he beat me out for homecoming king...well...I was never the same after that.” Jack hates to admit how much that still bothers him.  _ I’m not the kinda guy who cares that much about being popular. Or did I choose not to be because of this?   _

“Uh, Jack, you do know that homecoming kings hold no real power, right?” Bozer asks.

“Just sayin', this punk really shook my confidence.”

“Well, he may have, Jack, but this was years ago.” Riley shrugs.

“Decades,” Bozer adds.

“Centuries, even.” Mac doesn’t even have the decency to look ashamed of himself when Jack glares at him. 

“Yeah? Oh, very funny. No, no. Go ahead. Laugh it up, fuzzballs.” He reaches to try and rub a fist in Mac’s hair, but the kid dodges him. 

“If you hate the guy so much, why are you even going to the reunion?” Bozer asks. 

“Well, I wasn't, but then it turned out to be the same weekend as this robo-apocalypse contest, and I don't want no part of that.” The thing he’s not too fond of about all this is the impersonal nature of the ones and zeros that control those things.  _ You can’t replace emotion with a computer program. A good sniper can call an audible in field. Might even be able to save an innocent life. No computer can really make judgments like that. _

But even more than that, he’s well aware there are people like Riley with much less morals. And he’d hate to see the kind of chaos they could unleash.  _ Automated cars, planes, anything controlled by a computer can be controlled by anyone who can beat the system.  _

“Jack. The Korman Challenge is a friendly competition.” Mac shakes his head. 

“Yeah, I'm sure that's what Miles Bennett Dyson said when he activated Skynet and unleashed an army of Terminators.”

There’s a ping from the screen and Matty’s face pops up on voice chat; Jack can see Valerie behind her.  _ Kid’s the mini version of Mac, it’s cool that she’s here. _ “Can someone please tell me why I'm waiting on you guys? I mean, we're all loaded up, ready to leave for Virginia, and we're just missing the team that's, you know, actually competing.” She glances at Jack, and he’s sure she knows exactly what digging he’s been doing. “And, Dalton, your cover I.D. is bathroom tile salesman.”

“Right.” 

“If I find out that you leaked classified info to impress some divorced ex-cheerleader from Bumblesticks Musical High School, then you're gonna wish it was the robot apocalypse.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” Jack stands up and closes the files on Jimmy. If he wants to make it to that reunion in time, he’s got to leave now.  _ Yay. _

* * *

SOMEWHERE IN VIRGINIA

KORMAN CHALLENGE BASE

Matty steps up in front of her team, making sure everyone is watching before she begins.  _ Most of them have heard this before, but we do have some new faces.  _ She glances at Mac and Valerie standing near their drone, then pulls up her briefing on the screen at the front of their work area. “Ten years ago, DARPA scientist Martin Korman had a dream: to create an autonomous medevac transport that could rescue wounded soldiers from the battlefield without risking additional troops. So he created the Korman Challenge. To bring the brightest minds together, with the hope that one day, someone would fulfill his dream.” She looks around at her team. “But one aspect of the competition has always remained the same. Our team has never won. But this is our year.” She gives Valerie a wink. “The year that the Phoenix takes home the blue ribbon, and all the black budget funding that comes along with it. So tighten every single screw, and double-check every line of code, because everything on this vehicle must be absolutely perfect.  No mistakes today, people. None. Now, go win that challenge.”

Valerie is standing proudly, shoulders back, a serious, determined look in her eyes. Matty smiles.  _ She’s so happy to be here. Her father said she didn’t take that jacket off all day yesterday, when he dropped her off.  _

She’s never met the Lawsons before this week, but Patty had. Apparently last year Mac went home for his science teacher’s retirement and saved Valerie from kidnappers. _ Almost got himself in trouble for a parole violation at the same time. _ Matty remembers the Mac from back then, the one terrified to slip up, to make one mistake and ruin everything. 

Now, there’s a hopeful confidence in him that she’s glad to see. He’s looking over part of the vehicle, checking some of the connections and repairing a faulty bracket holding up some of the weapons on the side, and he’s completely absorbed in his work, smiling a little as he asks Val for tools and to hold things while he’s working. 

_ Because someone took a chance on him.  _ Matty’s always been one for calculated risks. Teaming Jack and Riley was one. She needed a father figure, he needed someone to mentor, someone he’d be willing to pull himself out of a dark place for. Riley was a loose cannon, and Jack was about to become one. She’d been hoping they’d stop each other instead of pushing each other over the edge faster. 

But hiring a convicted terrorist hadn’t even sounded like a calculated risk.  _ I would have been against it. _ And it would have been one of the worst decisions she could have made. Mac’s made her rethink a lot of things. Reminded her that sometimes people aren’t as bad as she might expect. After Ethan, she hasn’t had a lot of trust in people. But Mac’s giving her some of that back, just a little.  _ How ironic that something his father did made me lose the ability to trust, and now he’s helping me find it again.  _

“Okay, it looks like we’re ready to roll!” Mac stands up, and his grin is virtually identical to Valerie’s. 

“Let’s see if this works,” Riley says, and keys in her command to start the vehicle. The engine starts and the vehicle begins to back out of the tent. Mac high-fives Valerie and then turns to  Matty. 

He’s probably about to say something, but then there’s a sputtering groan from the motor and their vehicle stops just outside the tent. Mac’s smile vanishes, and he gives Matty a wide-eyed fearful glance before grabbing his toolbox and rushing outside, Valerie trailing him. Matty shakes her head.  _ Of course it all decides to fall apart today. _

* * *

Mac  _ knew _ something like this was going to happen. Their drone has worked perfectly every other time they’ve tested it. But of course it starts acting up the day they actually need it to work.

“It sounds like there’s a problem with the ignition switch,” Valerie says. Mac nods. “I’ve heard that before when Dad works on cars that got pounded around running on the rough tracks. He said if the switch gets shaken loose the engine just stops.” 

“And the vibrations from being loaded in the back of a military transport plane could definitely cause that.” He hands Val the tool kit. “Okay, so what are we gonna do about this?” He asks, bending over the engine with Val beside him.  _ Hopefully it’s not too serious. We don’t have time for it to be. _

“Wow, they really start them young at the Phoenix Foundation,” a voice says behind them. Mac turns around to see a woman who looks to be in her early thirties walking up. She’s wearing a Korman Challenge jacket too, although hers reads CIA. “Having trouble?”

“Nothing we can’t fix,” Mac says quickly. He doesn’t think it’s normal for another team’s members to be scouting out the competition. Not that there’s much time to do anything about it. The challenge officially starts in two hours. 

The woman smiles, and Mac instinctively feels a shiver. There’s too much predator in those bared teeth. It’s not in any way a kind look. “As far as I know, this is a  _ friendly _ competition. All I’m here to do is offer to help you fix your drone.”

“Pretty sure the rules say there isn’t supposed to be help given from outside teams.” He tries to step in between her and the engine. He likes to think he’s a decent judge of character, nowhere near Cage’s level but good. And this woman isn’t here out of the kindness of her heart. 

“Rules were made to be broken.” Mac doesn’t like how close she’s standing now, or the way her leg is pressed up against his. It feels wrong. And when she reaches for his collar, he steps back quickly. 

“We don’t need your help.” 

She shrugs, tossing her short dark hair back over her shoulder in an exaggerated gesture. “Okay, fine. I just think it’s a shame to win by a slaughter. Yours looks like the only drone that might actually give BRUNO a run for his money.” She glances behind her to where a squat desert-camo painted drone is sitting outside a tent. She whistles and snaps her fingers, and the drone starts, turns a full 360 degree circle, then backs into the tent.

Mac can almost hear Val’s jaw hit the ground. “Whoa that’s super cool.” He can tell she’s not picking up on the tense undercurrents here. He wishes he was still that unfamiliar with certain aspects of the way the world works. Because everything in this woman’s face and voice is as predatory as any of the people who’ve hurt him.  

“Having trouble out here, Mac?” Riley asks.

“Uh, she actually just left.” Moc nods toward where the woman is disappearing into the CIA tent. He deliberately steps away from where Val is messing with the engine; she doesn’t need to hear this.  _ No sense in ruining whatever innocence she might have left. _ And he has to admit, he has a selfish reason too. He wants at least one person to not see  _ that _ when they look at him. 

“Allie Winthrop,” Riley says, lip curling with distaste. “She’s got quite a reputation. Both for wanting to win, and for not having a problem stealing someone else’s ideas.” She shakes her head. “Not someone you want to get mixed up with.”

Mac has every intention of staying as far away from her as possible already. “Sounds like you’ve learned from experience.” 

“She was my last CIA partner before Jack. And the reason no one wanted to work with me.” Riley shrugs. “It’s been six years, and I still kind of want to break her nose.” 

“I think you may have spent too much time around Jack.”

“More like too much time around Elwood,” Riley says, shrugging. “She kind of deserves it though.” She glares at the CIA tent. “I kept giving my handlers grief, and the CIA didn’t really know what to do with me. They pulled me out of surveillance and put me in the Special Research Division.” Riley says. “It felt like they were just trying to find somewhere I wouldn’t cause an international incident.” She sighs. “Allie was my lab partner.” 

“I’m guessing that ended about as well as most high school group projects?”

“I thought she actually liked me. She sort of felt like the big sister I never had, you know? She was always helping me, wanted to work on projects together.” Riley frowns. “I was less than trusting at first, but she kept saying I did amazing work, that I was by far the smartest person in the lab, that I had so much talent…” She shrugs. “I was young and struggling and hearing someone tell me that, it meant a lot. And then I found out she was passing off my work as her own at our evaluations.” She frowns, and Mac watches her clench her fists tighter. “When I heard her tell our department supervisor the facial recognition coding was her project, I...may have punched her. I had some anger issues back then, and after Elwood I was used to solving my problems with violence.” Riley shrugs. “She twisted everything, claimed I was the one stealing her work and taking credit, and...if Matty hadn’t found Jack to work with me they probably would have kicked me out of the CIA.”

“Ouch.” Mac glances at the tent again. “No wonder she wanted a look at our drone.”

“That’s not all she wanted, is it?” Riley asks. Mac bites his lip, shaking his head and staring at the ground. “I saw enough.” 

“Shouldn’t be a problem if I stay out of her way, which I fully intend to do.” The vehicle’s motor starts and Val gives him a greasy thumbs up, grinning.

“If she bothers you again, I’m more than willing to sock her in the jaw,” Riley says. “I owe her a few, still.” 

“I’ll settle for our entry beating hers this time,” Mac says, chuckling and putting an arm around Riley’s shoulders. “Show her you’re better and you don’t have to cheat your way to the top.” Riley grins at him, and he’s glad she’s not like Allie.  _ Because Riley is the big sister  _ I  _ never had. And she’s the best one anybody could ask for. _

* * *

JACK’S HIGH SCHOOL REUNION

THIS WAS A MISTAKE

Jack grabs a glass of punch from the table in the corner, then wanders out into the gym. Someone’s gone over and above on the decorating. Red, yellow and black balloons cover every inch of the basketball hoops and are propped up in an arch at the end. A huge banner with “Welcome Home Longhorns” is hanging from the bleachers, and the tables are decorated with a bunch of red and gold confetti and a paper stand-up cutout of the bucking bull mascot. 

Jack wonders if that’s Julie Dickinson’s work; she’s still in town and last he heard she opened her own party planning business after the divorce.  _ She did the decor for senior homecoming too. _ He still can’t forget that night. It all looked glamorous until they were handing Jimmy the crown. Then it felt like it was mocking him. This looks a little too similar for his comfort.  _ Classier, less punk rock and more grown-up. _ But he knows if they turned the lights down and lit this place up with some blacklights, it would be like he’d gone straight back in time. 

Although it still sort of feels like it when he starts picking out the familiar faces in the crowd. He wanders over to a man wearing a cowboy hat and talking to someone so enthusiastically his drink is slopping over the edges of the plastic cup. The second he catches the man’s eye, there’s the familiar booming greeting. “Jack Dalton!”

“Oscar Himenez?” Jack holds out a hand, pulling the man into a one-armed hug.

“I knew it was you. You don't look a day older.” 

“You look great, man. I love your hat.” He turns to the woman in the green dress standing nearby; he remembers her from the football games, the cheerleader who always did the crazy handsprings during halftime.  _ She was good. Like Olympic gymnast good. _

“Tina Pham! You look amazing.” She grins and hugs him.

“Hey, Jack.”

“It is so great to see you guys. How long's it been since…” 

“Homeroom together?” Oscar asks.  _ Oh man, we were a team. _

“Remember that? Who else was in there?” 

“Jimmy LeRoy?” Tina asks suddenly.

“No, I don't think Jimmy was in...there….” Jack turns around, because both Oscar and Tina are walking over to the door. Jack feels his stomach drop, especially when Oscar sets down his punch and proceeds to chest-bump Jimmy and start laughing at something the man says. 

“Son of a bitch. He's aging better than George Clooney.” 

He officially regrets coming. Maybe he can just slip out and book it back to LA. Before this turns into a real repeat of the homecoming fiasco all over again.  _ Sure, everyone likes me, they just like Jimmy more. _ It shouldn’t bother him, but it does. 

He’s headed for the door when he feels a hand on his shoulder, and turns around to see the person he’s the least ready for.  _ Damn, wouldn’t even have felt sorry if I reflex socked him in the jaw.  _ It’s not like Jimmy  _ should _ know better than to come up on Jack from behind, but still.  _ Sneak up on a trained, active field agent, take your life in your hands.  _

“Dalton! I thought that was you! Where’re you goin’, man? Party’s just getting started!”

Jack laughs, wondering if Jimmy’s paying enough attention to notice it’s fake. Not even good fake. “Hey, Jimmy.”

“Hey, man.” Jimmy holds out his hand. “Bring it in, brother. Bring it in.” He pulls Jack into a hug that feels forced and awkward. At least to Jack. “All right, all right. All right. How are you?”

“I'm good.” Jack just wants this to be over so he can get out of here.  _ Damn, I need Mac, he’d have some way to create a diversion with all those helium balloons or something. _ Jack bites back a chuckle at the thought of Jimmy walking around with a squeaky nasal voice. 

“Yeah? You look good.” Jimmy squeezes his shoulder, and Jack flinches, it’s the one he fell on last week in Morocco. There’s still a nasty bruise. 

“Thanks.” Jack takes a big swig of his punch, it’s definitely spiked but not  _ nearly _ enough to be dealing with Jimmy on.  _ I’d need about five more glasses to handle this. _

“Been a long time.”  _ Not long enough. _

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.” Jack just wants to walk away. But Jimmy, as usual, won’t let him. He’s still gripping Jack’s shoulder. 

“Can you believe this, huh? Together again, like nothing's changed.”  _ That’s the problem, man. _

“How you been?” Jack asks, out of a sense of duty.  _ Maybe then he’ll leave and I can get outta here.  _

Jimmy grins, clearly he’s been waiting for someone to say that, and Jack has a bad feeling about this now. “Oh, oh, great, man, great. Thanks for asking. You know, I, uh, I sold my business last year for ten times my initial investment. We used the proceeds to start a nonprofit. We just opened three schools and a hospital in Africa.”  _ Of course you did. _ Jack saw the paper trail when he was digging through the guy’s financials.  _ Okay, kind of illegally, but I wanted to know if we could get him for tax fraud or something! _ But Jimmy’s playing it straight, as far as Jack can tell. And clearly he’s proud of it. It leaves a bad taste in Jack’s mouth.  _ I hate people who brag up their charity work.  _ It always makes Jack want to either get far away from them or punch them.  _ All well and good that you’re doing stuff like that, but not if it’s all to make yourself look good on paper and win brownie points with everyone you tell. _

“The wife, you know, she's still modeling a little bit here and there,” Jimmy chuckles, “but her natural foods company just went public, and the stock is up through the roof, man.” He pulls his phone out and opens it. “Oh, wait, my kids…” He holds out the phone with a picture of a kid playing baseball. “That's Jimmy Jr. there, ace left-hander. The Blue Jays are already scouting him. Don't get me started on that.”  _ No intention of it.  _ “And, uh, my little belle, Melody, she starts Harvard next fall, man.” The girl on the screen must have inherited her looks from her model mother.  _ It all seems to good to be true. Like he made all this up to impress everyone here, pulled some pictures off the internet. _ But Jack’s looked the guy up, everything he says seems legitimate. “I got no complaints, brother. No complaints at all.” Jimmy shrugs, putting the phone away. “What about you, Dalton? Where has life taken you?” 

Jack can’t help it. He leans in close and whispers, “I'm a highly trained government operative who's fought terrorism on multiple continents and saved the world over a dozen times.” 

Jimmy laughs. Just laughs, hands imitating a pair of guns firing. “Get in here, man. That's you. There he is. The old class clown.” He hugs Jack again, and Jack wants to push him away and bolt. “That's great. I love that. You old joker, you’ve only gotten better with age, man.” 

“Yeah, that’s me. Always here with the jokes,” Jack says weakly. 

“But no, seriously, how's the bathroom tile biz?” Jimmy asks. 

“It’s...good. Although, man, you shouldn’ta said bathroom, because now…” he holds up his cup of punch and chuckles weakly. “Goes right through me. I’ll be back, alright?” 

The locker room smells just as moldy and sweaty as Jack remembers. He leans on the sink, frowning into the hazy, speckled mirror, not entirely sure if he’s going to actually need to run to the toilet and throw up. “Of course. Of course he's healing sick kids and building schools in Africa, and his wife is a supermodel business mogul, and his kids are Ivy League bound and athletically gifted. Of course. What are you doing with your life, Dalton? What are you doing?” He should just walk away, going back in there would be like willingly walking into that torture chamber in Myanmar and strapping himself to the chair himself. But oh, he wants something to rub in that man’s self-satisfied face. He just doesn’t know what.  _ Matty will kill me if I keep insisting on the secret agent thing. _ He was right, this is like homecoming all over again and he’s going to leave this bathroom and run out of here like a dog with his tail between his legs.  _ Some things never change. _

His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he pulls it out and glances at it. It’s a text message, and he opens it. 

**Riley: Our entry’s about to take the field. Wish us luck!**

Below it is a photo, an out of focus selfie of Riley, Mac, Bozer and Val in front of their entry. Apparently it now has a name, because in blurry but legible red letters on the side, Jack can see “Dalton’s Nightmare.” 

Jack grins. They look like they’re having the time of their lives. Mac’s smile seems a little...off, and it gives Jack a moment’s pause, but Riley has her arm around his shoulder and her grin is just a touch fierce and protective. Whatever’s going on, she’s got it handled.  _ I’m so proud of those kids. Looking out for each other, saving the world, doing awesome things I can’t actually understand but that are gonna change the world… _ He looks up at the mirror again and suddenly isn’t confronted by a total failure. 

_ So maybe Jimmy has Ivy Leaguers and the perfect American dream family. But I’ve got it pretty good myself. _ Jack saves the photo to his phone and walks back out to the gym. 

* * *

KORMAN CHALLENGE

THIS ISN’T THE BEST SLOT THEY COULD GET

_ Most kids in school wanted to go first. Wanted to get their speech or their show and tell project or whatever out of the way. _ Riley usually ended up being, if not first, at least close, since she had a last name close to the start of the alphabet.  _ I hated it every time. _

She likes knowing what she has to beat. How much better she has to be. And not that she can make changes to her coding once the contestants start, but she’ll at least be able to judge whether they have a shot.  _ Going first means everyone else is determined to do better. _

Bozer is clearly not of the same opinion. “Ready to set the bar unattainably high, team?” He asks. He’s going around giving high fives and trying to get everyone pumped up. 

“It’s a robot, Bozer, a cheering section will not affect performance,” Riley says when Boze hands Val a mini bullhorn. 

Bozer gives her a mock-offended glare. “I’m offended on his behalf, Riley. You hurt his feelings. Why should he want to win when you don’t even care about him?” He leans on the front fender. “Don’t listen to her. You’re amazing and you’re gonna show all those other drones today.”

“Mac?” Riley asks. “Should we...be concerned?”

“Probably not. He’s been weird about inanimate objects since he tried to make a live action version of  _ The Brave Little Toaster  _ in high school.” Mac shrugs. “Adding an A.I. probably didn’t help.”

“And he lets you take apart the appliances at home?”

“He tried to stop me for two days. But then Mama Bozer complained about the chemical smells from my other experiments.” He shrugs. “I never totally destroy them. I usually make them work even better.” 

“First contestant to the starting line!” one of the officials shouts, and Riley feels her stomach turning into a tangle of nerves.  _ I don’t want to screw up. I really don’t want to screw up with Allie watching. _ She teased Jack for not wanting to go to his reunion because of his high school nemesis, but she’s starting to regret it.  _ Who knew people who made you feel like dirt can be scarier than people who literally tortured you? _

She follows Mac and Bozer and their vehicle to the starting line. “Organization?” one of the judges asks. 

“Phoenix Foundation,” Mac answers. 

“And the name of your entry?” 

“Dalton's Nightmare,” Bozer says theatrically, earning himself a glare. “It, ah, it's kind of a inside joke.”

The judge raises an eyebrow. “Okay.” He turns to the assembled team “It's a 20 mile course. Your vehicle earns points from speed, accuracy, and the ability to differentiate between targets. This is a live fire exercise, so I'm gonna have to ask you to…”

Bozer cuts in. “All our weapons are state of the art, less lethal technology: Taser cannons, beanbag rounds, pepper spray grenades.” The man’s frown gets even deeper. 

“I...uh...don't like guns,” Mac volunteers weakly. 

“Super.” Riley hates the skepticism in the man’s voice.  _ Mac’s a literal genius.  _ Now she wants them to win more than ever, because she can deal with being criticized and gloated over, if she has to, but she can’t watch it happen to Mac. 

The judge is still talking. “I'm still gonna have to ask you to step behind the safety line.”

Riley does, crowding in beside the rest of her team. Matty glances up at her. “If your robot doesn’t win, you’re all fired, and I’m hiring Valerie to replace you,” Matty says, then smiles and shakes her head. “Good luck, team.” 

The PA system crackles to life with a shriek that makes Riley wince. “Be advised, this is a live fire exercise. Weapons hot. Ready. Set…”

_ Boom. _

Riley flinches as heat sears across her face and ducks to avoid flying shrapnel. In front of them is a smoking hunk of metal.  _ Did it self destr… _ There’s another massive explosion, and a drone across the field flies apart and catches fire. Riley stays low, looking around frantically for the source of the shots. Then she sees it. The CIA drone is swinging its onboard cannon toward yet another contestant.

Bozer grabs Riley’s arm, yelling over the panicked shouting and the crackle of flames. “This has to be a rules violation!”

“I don't think this is part of the contest,” Riley says. Allie is standing in one of the prep tents, holding her laptop and typing frantically. Riley runs toward her.  _ Okay, this is crossing a line. Or something is really really wrong. _

“Allie. Allie!” 

“It's not me!” Allie shouts, and she looks genuinely distraught. Riley flinches as another explosion goes off somewhere behind them. 

“I'm locked out. Bruno won't respond to any of my commands.”

“Has this ever happened before?” Riley asks. 

“Never. I don't know what's going on.” Allie looks her in the eyes for a split second, and Riley sees nothing but fear, desperation, and shock.  _ She’s not doing this on purpose. _

There’s a deep rumble of an engine turning over, cutting through the screaming and the sound of running feet. She turns around to see what’s happening, and freezes. 

Bruno is driving straight for the gate. Which is putting the Phoenix team directly in the path. Bozer and Matty are already moving, trying to clear people out of the way, but Riley can see Valerie crouching against one of the barriers, clearly terrified by the chaos all around her, and hidden from the rest of her team by the panicked crowd. Mac is pushing his way toward her, but he’s fighting the current of people trying to escape. And Bruno is bearing down on them all. 

The drone swerves slightly, avoiding a larger transport vehicle, and Riley gasps when its new trajectory points it directly at Valerie. She sees Mac fight free of the last of the fleeing crowd and grab Val, rolling over to try and move them out of the way...and then Bruno smashes through the barricade like it’s matchsticks, rolling over the splintered wood and through the gate. 

“Mac! Valerie!” Riley shouts, stumbling across the field toward the place she last saw them. The air is full of dust and smoke.  _ Please, please, they have to be okay. _

She reaches them just as Matty and Bozer do, and she throws herself onto her knees on the ground, reaching for her teammates with shaking, unsure hands. Mac is lying in a huddle on the ground, curled around Valerie protectively. She can’t see any blood, but if he has a head or back injury...she can’t bear the thought of Mac dying here like roadkill. 

Then she hears the shaky breaths, through the ringing in her ears that’s a combination of being so close to the explosion and the fear that’s threatening to choke her. Mac slowly uncurls, and now that she’s listening Riley can hear him whispering. 

“It’s okay, it’s alright, I’ve got you. We’re okay.” He’s holding Valerie tight against his chest, running his fingers through her hair. “You’re okay.” Val nods, teary-eyed, and then starts to push herself to her feet. Riley helps her up, then turns to Mac, who’s propped himself up on one arm, still panting. 

“Mac, are you okay?”

He nods, wincing as he starts to stand up. “Just a few bruises. Bruno missed us.”  They’re both dusty and pretty shaken, but they do seem alright otherwise. Mac gets up and then pulls Val against him, and they all hurry toward the Phoenix tent.

Matty sounds like she’s giving a briefing when she turns around from scanning the specs on Bruno that Allie pulls up.  

“High-impact polymer armor, and a gas-electric hybrid engine with a 600 mile radius. It's like a Predator drone on wheels run by an on-board artificial intelligence that's just gone completely insane.”

“Well, technically, A.I.s can't go insane,” Riley corrects. “This is more like when an aerial drone goes rogue because its code has bugs. They call it a ‘flyaway’.” Matty frowns at her. “Okay, maybe now's not the best time to nitpick terminology.”

“I ran Bruno through 10,000 simulations without a single glitch,” Allie insists. She looks distraught.  _ That happens when you’re used to being the top dog and then something screws it all up.  _ Riley doesn’t feel very sympathetic. 

“Bruno destroyed eight other drones and tried to turn my team into human roadkill. That's a bit more than a glitch.” She doesn’t bother to cut out the bitter sting in her words. 

“Guys, the only thing that matters now is stopping Bruno before he hurts anyone else,” Matty says, glaring at Riley. “Bozer, Mac, Allie, take one of the service vans and join the search time. Riley, you’re here with me.” It’s clear Matty won’t take argument. And Riley can’t say she’s wrong. _Me and Allie in the same vehicle would be a ticking time bomb._ _Separating us is definitely for the best._ But the thought of _Mac_ and Allie in there together isn’t particularly comforting, especially not when Riley’s watching Mac trying his best to keep his distance.  

“I want to help.” Valerie’s standing there, wiping dirt off her jacket and her face, but looking almost scarily determined.

“No. You stay here with Matty and Riley,” Mac says. “I almost got you killed once today already, and if I let anything happen to you your dad will kill me.”

“I’m not scared. Not anymore.” She looks up at Mac pleadingly. “I want to help you stop Bruno.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“Then why are you going?”  _ Right. She thinks Mac is just a think tank geek. She doesn’t know that he almost dies on a near-weekly basis on dangerous missions around the world.  _

Mac bites his lip and looks from Valerie to the floor and back up again. “Okay. But you have to stay in the van the  _ whole _ time and do whatever I tell you to do, right when I say. Don’t argue and don’t ask why.” She nods. “Okay, let’s go stop a killer robot.” 

* * *

“So how are we supposed to stop Bruno if we can't even find him?” Bozer asks.

“We have to head for McLean,” Allie says. She’s staring blankly ahead at the road, and Mac’s just glad her attention isn’t on him. He’s starting to wish  _ he’d _ stayed behind in the tent with Matty and Riley, because being in the same van as someone who came within inches of sexual harassment earlier is not his idea of a good time. 

“Virginia? You think he's headed to CIA Headquarters?” Riley asks over comms.    
“If Bruno ever malfunctions, he's programmed to go into safe mode. As long as the on board GPS still works, he should be driving back to my lab as we speak.”

“Running home to mama,” Bozer mutters. “It's cute when a puppy does it. This? Not so much.”

“Okay, Allie, I've got birds in the sky, Jeeps on the ground and satellite views from here to McLean. There's no sign of your lost dog,” Riley says. She’s still pissed, Mac can hear it in her voice. “How do we get eyes on it?” 

“I'm not sure we can. Bruno is radar, sonar, and thermal invisible. He's got visual camouflage, and he's programmed to use dense foliage for cover.”  _ Fantastic. _ Mac’s beginning to see why Jack hates the idea of the rise of the machines. 

“And good luck following the right set of Humvee tracks on a military base,” Bozer says. “Say, Allie. You didn't want to maybe put in a master kill switch just in case, you know, this happened?”

“Of course I put in a master kill switch. It was the first thing I tried when Bruno took off. But the code is corrupted. It's not working.” 

“So we have a rogue robot with no off switch and an apparently murderous A.I. personality?” Bozer asks. “I’m starting to have the horrible feeling that we have to admit Jack is right about something.” 

“Wait a minute, Allie, you said that Bruno is a gas-electric hybrid? Then I think I know how to find him.” Mac glances at the dashboard. “Hey, Matty, would you tell all of our search vehicles to turn off their engines?”

“Because we'll find Bruno faster if fewer people are looking for it?” Matty asks. 

“Yeah, well actually, we're not gonna be using our eyes. We're gonna be following our noses. Bozer, can you get me a screwdriver from back there?” Bozer hands one up and Mac starts disassembling the overhead lights and then the vents in the dashboard. 

“You’re tearing my van apart?” Allie asks. “What the hell…”

“Do you want to find your psychotic drone or not?” Mac asks. “This may not be the cutting edge tech you’re used to, but it should help us track Bruno down.” 

“By disassembling my vehicle?” 

“Get used to it, this is how he works,” Bozer says, sounding a little frustrated. 

Mac tries to ignore the angry glares coming his way and work on his drone-tracking device. “You're using the A/C system's carbon dioxide sensors to build an electronic nose so we can sniff out Bruno's exhaust!” Valerie says excitedly, as Mac begins wiring the two components together.

“Yep, that’s exactly what I’m doing.” Mac hands her the other light and sensor. “Wanna put that one together? Just like mine, okay?”

* * *

SOMEWHERE IN VIRGINIA

BOZER WANTS OUT OF THIS VAN

“Look, I know I'm not in the position to criticize anyone else's work right now, but are you sure this contraption of yours is gonna work?” Allie asks. 

Bozer’s getting fed up with this woman criticizing Mac. And Mac seems more than usually uncomfortable with it.  _ It sucks but honestly at this point he’s used to people questioning him methods.  _ But the last time Mac seemed this freaked out by someone who didn’t trust him, it was when Matty took over as director. 

There has to be some other issue. The problem with Matty was that if she didn’t like Mac she could send him back to prison. Obviously, Allie doesn’t have any authority over Mac, it doesn’t matter what she thinks of him, but he’s still on edge.  _ And Riley seems pissed at her for some reason. _ Bozer thinks she said something about them having worked together at some point in Riley’s past. 

“Listen, have a little faith,” Bozer says. “Mac’s plans always work.” As if to prove his point, the light on the left branch (okay, he can see how cutting off tree branches and sticking their sensors on them might not have inspired confidence) begins blinking. 

“Left, Allie, left!” Mac says. She turns, bouncing them over a rough two-track trail that’s definitely made for Jeeps and Humvees, not their van. Bozer can feel his teeth rattling together as they pound over the ruts, and Mac is holding onto the armrest on his seat like his life depends on it. Val gasps when they hit a bump that sends them airborne for a second. Mac reaches back to check her seatbelt, and she grins at him, then points. 

“Right!”

Sure enough, the right sensor is blinking. 

“I can’t turn here, it’s all trees!” Allie snaps. 

“Then keep going until we find a road,” Mac says. It sounds like he’s trying hard to keep his cool. Boze almost wishes he’d just lose it, get mad for once. 

“There!” Bozer says. It looks like this road is arguably even worse than the one they’re on. Allie turns, and the van slows to a crawl, rocking side to side in massive potholes. 

Both the lights are blinking now. “Straight ahead,” Mac says. 

“Maybe he’s pounded himself into a dozen pieces out here,” Bozer suggests hopefully. He feels like  _ he _ ’s about to fall apart himself. And then up ahead there’s movement, and a tan and grey shape flies across in front of them.

“That’s him!” Allie shouts and floors the accelerator.  _ Actually maybe we’re feeling the bumps just a tiny bit less. _ Or Bozer’s brain is so battered it’s not registering the pounding anymore. “I c-cannot believe that ac-ctually w-worked.” She’s bouncing around so much she looks like a bobblehead.

“R-riley, we g-got eyes on Br-bruno.” Bozer’s trying to keep from biting his tongue off while updating Riley. This is officially the worst road he has ever been on in his life. Mac is wincing, this probably doesn’t feel great on his bruises from earlier. Val, on the other hand, looks like she’s having the time of her life.  _ Right. Her father used to make smuggling runs on two-tracks like this and the whole town is known for dirt track racing.  _ She probably grew up bouncing through potholes in a car seat. He’s not sure that’s an exaggeration. 

They pop out of the trail onto a decent dirt road and Bozer can still see the dust swirl up ahead from Bruno. Riley, follow our signal.”

“I see your signal,” Riley says. “More importantly, I see  _ his _ signal. I'm gonna try to hack in and see if I can shut him down.”

They’re following Bruno out of the trees and onto a highway now. Bozer can hear horns honking as the drone merges with total disregard for flow of traffic. “Well, hack fast because Bruno just left the reservation. We're in civilian territory now,” Mac says. 

It feels like it takes too long to find a gap in traffic. Apparently no one wants to move over and let a dusty, scratched van into the mix. Bruno’s antenna is just barely visible in the distance. Passing the exit sign that leads to the CIA headquarters. “Guys, that was the exit for McLean. What happened to "he's programmed to go home"?” Bozer asks.

“I don't know. He is programmed to go home.” Allie keeps repeating that like she’s the one with the system glitch. 

“Damn it, guys, I can't get any kind of access,” Riley says.

“If you use my login credentials, it should give you admin privileges,” Allie says. “It’s ‘A…’”

“I tried.” Bozer enjoys the look on Allie’s face.  _ Hell yeah Riley broke your access codes.  _ “The admin's been changed. I can't hack in because someone else already has. Whoever they are, they still have control of Bruno, and I haven’t been able to find their access point and kick them out.” 

“So if Bruno isn't going home, where the hell is he going?” Bozer asks. 

“Um, nowhere good,” Mac mumbles, as they pass the signs saying how far from Washington D.C. they are.  _ Oh hell, this is very very bad. _

* * *

JACK’S HIGH SCHOOL

THIS IS GOING TO BE DIFFERENT THAN HOMECOMING

Jack’s still rehearsing his speech in his head when he steps out of the bathroom. “So Jimmy…”

“Yeah?”

Jack jumps. Jimmy’s standing right there. At the end of the hall, next to the trophy case. He’s looking at the section from their graduating year.  _ My MVP football trophy...and his Homecoming King photo. _

“Those were the days, weren’t they, Jack?” Jimmy asks. 

“Yeah, but you know what they say about the past.” Jack isn’t sure where he’s going with this. This is not how the conversation in his head went. At all. “Something about only looking forward or something like that.” 

“Yeah, the future’s the only thing you can change,” Jimmy agrees. “Speaking of futures, you never told me about that tile job,” Jimmy says. “I never really figured you for a salesman type.” 

“It pays the bills,” Jack says. “And there’s a surprising amount of travel involved.” He grins, now he’s getting to the part he knows he can brag up. “You work your way up the corporate ladder and there’s some pretty sweet paid retreats. Upscale hotels, private flights…”  _ Nearly getting blown to hell, shot up, or otherwise brutally killed... _

“Wow, I had no idea the tile sales business was that high class.” 

“Everyone’s into tile nowadays. All these minimalist designs and stuff, you know?” Jack says. “I’m making a nice chunk of change, but it’s really all the perks that keep me there. Working my way up to a nice retirement package that comes with its own condo.”  _ Those off-the-grid safehouses for ex-agents are actually really nice.  _ Not that he doesn’t want to retire to the ranch, but hey, if he’s got too big a target painted on his back, a cabin in Montana isn’t the end of the world. “They fly me all over, and we’ve even started going to some international conventions. Japan, Amsterdam, Morocco; join the tile company, see the world I guess.” 

“That’s unbelievable,” Jimmy says. “I guess I had the whole thing pictured wrong.” He shakes his head. “You found yourself someone to enjoy that retirement condo with yet?”

“Ah, you know, haven’t settled down yet,” Jack shrugs. “Keeping my options open.” He winks.  _ Sounds like I’m getting mine, doesn’t it? _ Better than ‘I’m too busy to hold down a stable relationship and I’d have to lie if I did have one and that doesn’t go over well’. Diane still isn’t talking to him, or even much to Riley, after the disaster at Christmas.  _ I mean, we did lie to her about a pretty huge thing with Mac, so she’s got a good reason to be pissed. _

“You old scoundrel,” Jimmy chuckles. “Still a player, huh?”

Jack just nods. “You know, I really feel like I’ve got all I need in life right now. Especially with the kids.”

“Kids?” Jimmy asks.

“Well, not technically mine. It’s sort of this mentoring program I got involved with a while back, pairing up fatherless kids with people who could fill that role.”  _ Yes, mentoring junior agents for the CIA and the Phoenix... _ “They’re all grown up now but it’s kinda hard to let go, you know? You get attached.” He chuckles. 

Jimmy’s smile looks a little more pasted-on now. Jack’s matching him high end life for high end life, and philanthropy to boot. “That big a part of your life, huh?” _Bet you never see the kids in your schools in Africa in person._ _And if you do, you’re just there for the photo ops._ Jack knows it’s a little unkind to think so badly of Jimmy, but in his experience guys like that never do anything good out of simple heartfelt generosity. Jimmy’s using what he does to make himself look good, and Jack’s had it. 

"My baby girl Riley's just moved up to the top non-executive level in her company last year, she's probably gonna end up running things before too long or that's what I keep telling her.”  _ Technically it’s totally the truth, being a Level 6 agent is the highest you can go before Director _ …“and Mac, he's at a huge robotics competition this weekend with the think tank he works for, his team designed a medevac transport for military use." He holds out the photo from the Korman Challenge. “That’s my kids, right there. Riley, Mac, um...that’s Bozer, Mac’s best friend, he’s basically family at this point, and that’s the kid  _ Mac’s _ been mentoring, Valerie. Super smart and just as into robotics as he is.”  

He hopes Jimmy doesn’t ask about college. Neither Mac or Riley actually went.  _ Well, unless Mac’s brief ill-fated time spent in an MIT lab freezer counts.  _ “Well, it sounds like you did really well for yourself,” Jimmy says slowly. “I...um, I’ve spent an awful long time thinking about you and wondering…”

“Wondering what?” 

“If I screwed you over with all that.” He’s staring at the homecoming photo like he can burn a hole in it with his gaze.

“Screwed me over? You were crowned homecoming king fair and square, you old dog.”

Jimmy laughs humorlessly. “Yeah. Except the part where I snuck into Mr. Haddon's office after school, and stuffed the ballot box.”

“Wait a minute. What'd you say?” Jack frowns.  _ I cannot be hearing this right. _

“Yeah, I stuffed the ballot box.”

“You stuffed the ballot box?” 

“Well, yeah, man. How else was I gonna win? Everybody loved you, Jack. Everybody. I mean, yeah, man, I know, it was stupid. But we were always neck and neck, and you had just kicked the winning field goal for us at State, so…”  

“You're not mad about this, are you? I mean, I hope not. I've been dying for years to get this off my chest.” 

Jack starts laughing and he can’t stop. “No. No, man. Come on, not at all.” He grabs Jimmy’s hand and pulls the man into another awkward hug, then steps back.  _ Maybe he really is trying not to be such a first-rate jerk. _ He’s suddenly a little sorry for doubting all Jimmy’s motives. “I mean, what kind of pathetic loser obsesses over something like this for all these years, right? Like, this one single event might've changed the course of his entire life?” _ Okay, so maybe this morning, I did think that. But even if it did, why would I want to change it? _ Jack honestly can’t imagine his life without Riley and Mac as a part of it. 

“Hey. Why don't you come back in the gym? I just bet Ahmed 50 bucks he can't do a backflip anymore. I think he's gonna try it,” Jimmy says.  _ Okay, so you’re still kind of a jerk.  _

Jack’s phone starts to ring, and he glances at it. It’s Matty. “Yeah, I'd love to, man, but I have a...uh...bathroom tile emergency I have to deal with.”

“Oh, right, right. They probably want to fly you to Dubai or something, huh? Hey, you stay in touch, Jack. Let's not wait another ten years to catch up.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that's a promise, brother.” Jack waits until Jimmy’s disappeared down the hall before answering his phone. “Don't tell me, let me guess. You started the robot apocalypse.” 

“Yes.” That was  _ not _ the answer he was expecting.  _ What did they do? _ “We have a runaway robot.”

“Well, I called that one, didn't I?” Jack feels like laughing hysterically again.  _ I finally gave Jimmy a taste of his own medicine, found out I really should have gotten homecoming king, and now Matty is telling me I was right about something. When am I gonna wake up?  _

“But a human is in control,” Matty continues. “Someone hijacked a fully-loaded military drone, and we believe it's headed for Washington D.C.” 

Jack resists the urge to say ‘I told you so’ again. “Mm-hmm, and does this someone have a name yet?” 

“We're working on it. Riley traced the signal to a network in Oklahoma City. And you're my closest agent. By the time you get there, we should have exact coordinates.”

“Okay. I'm on my way.” He hangs up the phone and heads for the door, turning in the hallway to raise a hand to the painting on the wall of the school mascot. “Go Longhorns!” 

* * *

“That was actually impressive,” Allie says, passing a pair of minivans to try and get closer to Bruno. “I have to admit I thought you were crazy.” She glances at Mac for a split second before staring at the road again. “And maybe you are. But I’m starting to think it’s in a good way.”

If it was coming from almost anyone else, Mac would think that was a good thing to hear. But something about the way Allie says it is making him even more nervous. She reaches down into the console for something, but her fingers fumble right over the sunglasses and the empty water bottle to brush Mac’s leg. He flinches and pulls back, and he sees her lips curve into a frown before her expression reverts to focus. 

This might be the first time Mac has actively wished someone would continue to dislike him. He knows exactly how to deal with rejection from people who don’t trust his admittedly strange skill set. He doesn’t want to deal with Allie trying to flirt with him. 

He goes for a distraction. “You can't think of any way that someone could've gained access to Bruno, like a breached firewall, or a phishing email?” 

“No. I'm insanely paranoid. And my security protocols are better than the NSA's.” He’s not helping things, now she’s bragging herself up. 

Bozer leans forward, and Mac breathes a sigh of relief that at least he’s picked up on the discomfort and is trying to take attention off Mac. “Well, somebody got in. We need to get them out. Riley, what if we just shut down all the cell towers? Cut them off from Bruno?”

“It's the first thing I tried. But 300 milliseconds after I killed the towers, Bruno switched over to a Chinese spy satellite. I'm trying to hack into that now, but it could take hours.”

“We don't have hours.  Bruno will make it to Washington D.C. in thirty minutes…” Mac’s been watching the road signs, and it looks like Bruno is taking the most direct route there.  _ We have no idea what his target is, but nothing is good. _

“And even if you kill the satellite, I programmed Bruno to adapt. He'll just switch to ad hoc cellular, unsecured Wi-Fi, infra-sound.” 

“Actually, I have an idea.” Mac glances out the window at the yard they’re passing. “Pull over, right here.” 

_ Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time I’ve stolen a satellite dish. Although I did return it as soon as I was done using it to disarm a cartel bomb.  _ He and Pena had run into a radio-frequency detonated bomb, and to keep it from being set off until they were done disarming it, Mac had used the dish to overpower the incoming frequency.  _ This is going to be pretty much the same. Except instead of a makeshift cell phone bomb, we’re trying to stop a state of the art military drone. _

“Hey, what the hell are you doing?” the homeowner yells, and Mac jumps into the back of the van, slamming the door and gasping.

“Okay, go, go, go!” 

“Get back here with that!” The voice fades as tires squeal and Allie pulls out onto the highway again.  

“Hey, Mac, didn't you hear what I said? If you jam the signal Bruno is using to receive commands, he'll just switch to another.” 

“We're not gonna jam his signal, we're gonna mess with his mind.” 

“So what's the game plan, Mac? You gonna kill him with pay-per-view?” Bozer asks. “I mean, they do say too much TV rots the brain…”

“You’re actually not too far off. See, all computers work by moving electrons through really, really tiny little wires. So if I can create enough radio waves, a whole bunch of them, I can mess with those moving electrons…” 

Allie cuts him off “Corrupt Bruno's data, overload his computer and crash his network. Oh my God. You’re a genius.” She grins at him, then turns back to the road just in time to avoid a collision with a pickup truck. “It’s crazy and I kind of love it.” 

“And I’m going to...uh...need your help to build it. Bozer, you’re gonna have to switch with her.” He shrugs, frowning sympathetically when Bozer stares at him. 

“You couldn’t have mentioned the need to switch drivers while you were, you know, off stealing someone’s entertainment?” 

“I’m just making this up as I go along,” Mac mumbles. 

“Okay, One Chinese fire drill coming up,” Bozer sighs. 

They pull onto the shoulder again, and instead of climbing out Bozer just grabs the wheel out of Allie’s hand and then slides himself into the seat as Allie moves to the back.  _ I’m glad that isn’t me.  _ That much close physical contact would have sent Mac into a panic attack, he’s sure of it. Bozer manages to merge them back into traffic almost immediately, despite a few angry honks from other drivers.  

Mac nods to Valerie. “I’m gonna need your help with this too, okay?” She unstraps her seat belt and follows him into the back.”I need small fingers that can get inside the wiring on the dish and reconnect it.”

“Okay, Allie, I’m going to need you to clip and strip this coax cable, so we can use it to run power to the dish,” Mac says. Allie nods, pulls a tool out of one of the drawers, and crouches down, her thigh pressed against Mac’s where he’s working on disassembling the dish. He scoots himself a tiny bit away from her, and she tilts her head like she’s not sure what he’s doing.

“You know, I thought you might have been just another pretty face, when I saw you this morning. But I...I’ve never met anyone like you, MacGyver.” Mac turns to grab a screwdriver and flinches at the proximity. Allie grabs the tool he’s fumbling for and hands it to him, but doesn’t let go for too long a moment, and Mac swears he can feel his skin crawling where their hands touch. “You do things differently than anyone I’ve ever met. You’re interesting, and you’re…” She stares at the gap he’s made between them, “a challenge. And I’m really fond of a good challenge. Some people say I’m too competitive. But winning is  _ such _ a good feeling.” She raises an eyebrow and rubs one finger along the side of his hand. “Don’t you think so?”

“I...uh...I think stopping Bruno would be a good feeling right now.” Mac stares fixedly at the tangle of wires in front of him.  _ I hate this. _ Being in a confined space with someone who is clearly coming onto him is not a comfortable memory.  _ Granted, she probably wouldn’t actually do anything serious, but… _ He still just doesn’t like it at all. 

But there is a way he can get a few minutes’ peace. “I need you to go up front and connect that coax cable to the charging port.” Allie nods and moves to the front, and Mac leans over his work again. But his hands are starting to tremble and he’s not going to be able to make the final adjustments. “Val, I could use your help now.” He keeps his voice low, not wanting to attract any attention from Allie. Thankfully, it sounds like Bozer is distracting her with some question about her designs for Bruno. 

“What’s wrong?” Val asks as she starts connecting wires. “You look really nervous. This is gonna work and we’re going to stop Bruno. Your plans always work.”

“Um, it’s not actually my plan that’s the problem.” He glances at Allie, still talking to Bozer. 

“Mac, she likes you.” Val says. “Didn’t you notice?”

“I noticed.” Mac says. “But...I don’t like her the same way.”

“Oh.” Val nods. “Like Ricky in math class. He always asks for my help with homework and I know he just wants an excuse to sit with me at lunch.” She shrugs. “But I don’t want to be his girlfriend.” 

“And you don’t have to be.” Mac says. “Just because someone else wants something from you doesn’t mean you have an obligation to make them happy. Not unless it’s what you want too. It matters what you want.” He didn’t have much of a choice about who wanted him. He hopes Val never ever faces that. He hopes she always has the chance to get out. 

“And you don’t want Allie to be your girlfriend.” Val says. “So you should tell her.” Mac smiles sadly and nods.

“Yeah, I guess I should.” 

Valerie finishes connecting the wires. “Okay, it’s done.”

Mac grabs the dish and heads back to the front of the van, trying to give Allie a wide berth. “Okay, this is only going to work within a hundred and sixty feet of Bruno. Bozer, you know what to do.”

“Absolutely not.” 

“Go faster. We have to catch up.”

“Oh, okay!” Bozer slams his foot to the floor on the gas. “As Jack would say, Fast and Furious, baby!” 

* * *

OKLAHOMA CITY

HOME OF MICKEY MANTLE, GARTH BROOKS...AND HACKERS, APPARENTLY

Jack’s not entirely sure what he was expecting. It certainly wasn’t a corporate office building.

“You sure this is the address Riley sent?” 

“A hundred percent, Jack.” Matty sounds exasperated. 

“Hacker's I. P. traces to an office on the fourth floor,” Riley says. “Hey, how was the reunion?”

“Fine.”

“Just ‘fine’?” Riley asks. “All those dramatics you went through about your hated high school nemesis Jimmy, and all you can say is ‘fine’?” 

“Well, seeing as we kinda have a killer robot on the run, I think I have bigger problems than some guy trying to steal my thunder. Besides, let’s just say I...gave him a taste of his own medicine.”

“Jack…” Matty sounds like she’s about to get concerned.

“Don’t worry, didn’t spill the beans on my real job. I’ll tell you about it all after we stop the Terminator, okay?” Jack cocks his gun and tucks it into his belt. “Any idea what I'm facing here? A murderous hacker collective? A sleeper cell of foreign agents? What?”  _ Whoever they are, they almost got Mac and Valerie killed.  _ He read the briefing on the plane, and he can tell that Riley glossed over how close the two were to being run over, because she didn’t want Jack to worry.  _ By now she should know that being vague makes me worry just as much. _

“Could be any and all of the above.” Matty says. 

Jack opens the door, and is immediately met by a wave of coffee, competing deodorant and cologne, and buzzing chatter. Phones are ringing everywhere, paper is shuffling, and people are hurrying around a chaos of cubicles.

“Okay, it’s officially worse. Welcome to the corporate jungle.” Jack sighs. “What is this, operation needle in a haystack? Matty. Will you please check that address one more time? Please.”

* * *

“All right. Almost in range,” Mac says. He’s trying to judge the distance but with the way Bruno is weaving in and out of traffic it’s hard to be sure.  _ I’d like to fry as few other onboard computers as possible.  _ As soon as he kicks this in, the van’s automated systems are going to go haywire too, so they only get one shot at this. “Get closer.”

“Okay, but I want to go on record that this feels like a terrible idea,” Bozer says. 

Mac checks the connections on the dish one more time, but looks up when he hears a mechanical whine. Bruno’s top mounted cannon is swiveling around to point at them. “Hey, Mac? Whoever's controlling Bruno just decided we're a threat,” Allie says. 

“Oh, man, I hate being right.” Bozer sighs. 

“Just keep your foot on the gas. If we’re close enough he’ll fire over top of us. The cannon has a 360 degree lateral range, but it can’t angle downward more than a few degrees, and it’s mounted high. If we get right behind him…” 

Bozer puts on an extra burst of speed and they drop in only a few yards behind Bruno. Mac settles the dish pointing directly at the drone. “Okay, we're in range. Allie, now!”

There’s a humming crackling sound, and the van coughs and slows, the computerized engine controls failing as the system overloads. But so does Bruno. They pull onto the side of the road and Allie jumps out with her computer and opens the back of the drone. 

“Where's she going?” Bozer asks.  

“I, uh, I wired this dish directly to the van's battery. But it's currently drawing more amps than we can output, so, uh once we run out of juice…” 

“You're about to say "Bruno wakes up," aren't you?” 

“Yeah. Keep this focused on him, all right?” Mac hands the dish to Valerie and jumps out. Allie’s trying to solve their problem with her programming, but Mac thinks there might be a more hands-on solution.  _ If I can cut some of the important wiring… _

And then Mac hears it. The whirr of something technical starting up. “No, no, no!” The van ran out of battery even faster than he expected. “Allie, get out before…” The rear doors slam practically in his face. “The doors close.” He pulls out his knife. Maybe he can undo the locks…

The engine turns over, and Mac barely has time to realize what’s happening before Bruno backs up. He scrambles backward, slamming into the hood of the van, and tries to pull himself up onto it and out of the way. His fingers are sliding on the glass and slick metal, but he manages to get hold of a wiper blade and one foot finds part of the front bumper to shove himself up. 

Bruno slams into the front of the van, and Mac can’t completely bite back a scream when the leg that he hadn’t managed to get up and out of the way is pinned between the hood and Bruno’s rear doors. He can  _ feel _ the snap, it’s just like the time all those years ago when he fell out of the treehouse in Mission City. Val’s treehouse.

He can see Valerie and Bozer through the windscreen, both of them staring at him in horror. Bruno pulls away, and Mac gasps again as the pressure on his left leg releases and the searing ache shoots up to his spine. He slides down the mangled hood, catching himself on his good leg, and half crumples to the ground, pulling off his shoe before his foot starts to swell. 

He hears the van doors open and footsteps running toward him, but everything is a little hazy and distorted by the pain. “Mac!” Valerie sounds like she’s teetering on the edge of full-blown panic. 

“I just sprained it. I’m okay,” he mumbles through gritted teeth.  _ She’s scared enough, no need to scare her more.  _ “It doesn’t hurt that bad. It just startled me.” He can tell she’s not really buying that, but he’s got to try and put a brave face on it for her. He pushes himself to his feet, leaning heavily on the van. “We still have to stop Bruno.” He glances at the rest area they’ve pulled off near. There’s an old Camaro in the parking lot, should be pretty easy to hotwire.

“Hey, uh, Boze, I could use a hand.” 

“Where are we going?” Bozer asks, pulling Mac’s arm over his shoulder and helping him stumble forward. 

“To steal a car.” 

“Guys, we've got a big problem,” Riley says.  _ That is not what I wanted to hear. _

“You mean besides the hacked military combat drone headed for D.C. with Allie trapped inside and Mac hopping around on a messed up ankle?” Bozer asks. 

Matty sighs. “Unfortunately, yes. The Air Force just scrambled three F-22s with orders to destroy Bruno on sight.”

“You guys have, like, 20 minutes, tops, to get Allie out of there.” He can hear Riley typing away frantically.  _ She’s trying to solve this the only way she knows how to, and it’s not working. _ He knows what it feels like to do the thing you’re good at and have it not be the solution you need.  _ It’s not a good feeling. _

“Matty, you’ve got to call that off.” Mac may not like Allie, at all, but he still doesn’t want to see her get blown off the face of the earth. 

“Mac, I tried. Homeland Security thinks this is the best option.”

“Well, then, we’ve got to give them a better one.”

“In the next 20 minutes? And if we can't?” Bozer asks. 

“We got to hope Jack's gonna be able to find whoever's controlling Bruno before it's too late.” Mac smashes an elbow through the glass on the driver’s window of the Camaro, but the sudden change of angle makes his ankle flare up in pain. He groans, sliding sideways despite Bozer’s best efforts to keep him upright. 

“Mac, are you okay?” Bozer asks. 

“I just need to wrap it.” Mac pulls off his sock and starts taking off his other shoe to get the other one.  _ It’s not ideal but I’ll worry about better first aid after we stop that drone. _

“I can start the car, you can help him, Bozer,” Valerie says. She opens the door and crawls in under the dashboard. _Maybe I should be concerned that she’s so confident in her hotwiring skills. But right now it’s coming in handy._ Bozer ties the socks around his ankle tight, and Mac hears himself whimper, biting his lip and feeling tears burning at the corners of his eyes. The engine turns over with a deep rumble and Mac looks up to see Valerie poking her head out the smashed window and looking at him with wide scared doe eyes. 

He pushes himself to his feet with an effort. “Okay, let’s go stop Bruno.” 

* * *

GENERIC OFFICE SPACE

JACK’S WORST NIGHTMARES COME TO LIFE

“Riley, this place is absolutely ginormous. Any chance you can tell me how to find this scumbag?” Jack’s wandering around the maze of grey walls, glancing into random cubicles and mostly getting weird stares from the occupants. He’s been mumbling something about random HR evaluations and moving on.  _ Probably confusing the heck outta the whole place.  _

“Sorry, Jack. I can tell you where he is on the network, but not in the real world. You're just gonna have to search that place one I.T. tech at a time.”

Jack glances at the red box on a pole. “Or I could use an old high school trick.”

The fire alarm begins ringing, and Jack jumps up on a slightly rickety table and starts yelling. “Okay, people, everybody out! Big fire coming this way.” There’s a disturbing slowness to the reaction time. Jack’s used to working in a place where people respond to any alarm with instantaneous security procedures, because it could mean the difference between life and death, especially after the lockdown last year. The scariest thing this office has probably ever experienced is someone’s P.F. Chang’s catching fire in the microwave. They don’t take things like this seriously. 

“Hey! Hey! Is minimum wage worth dying for? I don't think so, not last time I checked.” There’s now a small but steady flow of employees to the doors. “Sir, you like being on fire? No, no, no, no. That's right. It's getting hot in here.” He’s getting several confused stares now. “No time for eye contact, sir, think of your family.” Almost all the cubicles are empty now. Except for one in a far corner where Jack can see a man with a headset on typing rapidly. “And then there was one.”

He makes his way over to the cubicle and has his gun out by the time the man turns his chair around. “What's up, dude?” He pulls his phone out with his free hands and snaps a picture. “Riley, coming your way.” He stares at the man, frowning. “Hey, wait a minute. Don't I know you? Did you go to my high school or something? Played Dungeons and Dragons?”  

Riley’s voice is unnaturally tense. “No, Jack, you didn't go to school with him, but you have seen him before. That's Martin Korman. Founder of the Korman Challenge.” 

“The geek from the robo-pocalypse contest?” Jack shakes his head, the fire alarm is still buzzing in his ears. “Why would you sabotage your own thing, man?”

“Because it's not my thing. Not anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“I wanted to build unmanned ambulances to save wounded soldiers, but the government just wanted another weapon.” Korman sounds like he’s moments from snarling. Or hulking out. Jack doesn’t trust these nerdy scientist types. 

“Taking the human element out of war.” Jack does like the idea, being the human element is no picnic. “You have to admit, it has a certain appeal to the boys under fire. I can speak from experience.” 

“But robots can be hacked. Human soldiers can't. When I tried to explain this to my superiors, they pulled my security clearance. Forced me out. I had to make them see the mistake they were making. And since violence seems to be all they understand...” Korman’s getting excited, hands flailing as he talks. 

Jack can’t help but see the similarities between this guy and Mac.  _ Smart and idealistic. Doesn’t want what he does used to fight a war.  _ The ‘willing to break the law to make his point’ also fits.  _ But Mac would never have blatantly risked people’s lives to prove he’s right.  _ Korman almost killed people at the competition. And he probably plans to try again. 

“What did you program that thing to do?” Jack can hear the deadly anger seeping in.  _ He almost got Mac and Valerie killed.  _ He’s lucky they’re alive. 

Riley’s voice comes over comms. “Unfortunately, I can answer that. I just got into Korman's computer. He sent Bruno commands to fire everything it's got...at the Pentagon.”  _ Oh hell.  _

“Well, if you're at Frankenstein's computer, Riley, can't you just shut the monster down?”

“No, I can't. He sent his final command, then severed his connection to Bruno, making the drone fully autonomous. And I can't hack Bruno remotely.” Riley sighs. “I've tried.”

Jack sighs.  _ It’s all on Mac now.  _ “Okay, Dr. Frankenstein, on your feet. Don't mess around, I'll put one in you. Let's go.” 

* * *

“The road should be clear ahead of you,” Riley says, over the comms. “National Guard set up a roadblock a mile ahead, but…” She sighs. “Bruno blew through it just like he did at the competition.”

“Is anyone…” Bozer asks.

“They got out of the way in time. Some minor burns and smoke inhalation when Bruno blew up one of the Humvees, but nothing else.” 

“Okay, we see it.” Mac can see the smoke swirling up ahead, and the men watching in stunned disbelief when Bozer drives through. 

Valerie’s staring wide-eyed at the flaming wrecks and the smashed barrier. “Did Bruno do that?” She whispers. Mac officially regrets saying yes to her coming with them.  _ She shouldn’t be here. I should have insisted more. I should have made her stay.  _ She doesn’t need to live with nightmares the way he does. 

“You still have nine and a half minutes before the F-22 is in range,” Riley says.

“The countdown is  _ not _ helping!” Bozer gasps. “Okay, Mac, as Jack would say, time to be brilliant. So, what you got?”

“At this exact moment? Absolutely nothing.” Mac looks down at his hands, his fingers are shaking again. 

“Guys, I have an idea.” Hearing Riley say that over comms has to be in the list of top ten reassuring things Mac’s heard in his life. “I can modify Korman's code to reinstall the kill switch and shut Bruno down for good, but, um, I can't deliver the code remotely.”

“What does that mean?” 

“Means you're gonna have to physically upload the code by plugging a USB drive directly into Bruno.”

“That's insane!” Bozer yelps. 

“Agreed. But right now, insane is all we've got.” Matty’s breath hitches. “Riley is sending you the code now.” Mac grabs the backup rig Bozer took from the van and opens it, pulling a flashdrive out of the carrying case and plugging it in. 

He watches the progress bar load until the line blinks green, and he pulls out the flashdrive. “All right, download complete. We got your kill switch, Riley what now?”

“Just plug that USB into Bruno, it should shut him down.” She sighs. “I know, I know, easier said than done. But that’s all I’ve got.” 

“So all we have to do is climb onto a runaway military drone at eighty miles an hour, find a way inside, and reinstall the master kill switch before we get blown off the face of the planet by those F-22s? Piece of cake.” His ankle throbs at the thought. 

“Mac, are you sure you can do this?” He didn’t tell Riley and Matty outright what happened, but he knows they heard it all over comms.  _ They know how bad it really is. _

“No, he can’t. Which is why I’m gonna do it.” Bozer glances at Mac. “We don’t have time for another Chinese Fire Drill, do we?”

“No. We’re going to have to switch while we’re still in motion.” Mac looks back at Valerie.

“I can drive stick,” She says, her voice just a little wobbly but her lips pressed firmly together in determination. “I think I’ll be able…”

“No, honey. I was gonna tell you to buckle up tight.” Mac is absolutely terrified at the thought of doing something this dangerous with Valerie in the car.  _ I’m probably more scared than she is. Is this what being a parent feels like? Is this how  _ Jack  _ feels every time we risk our lives? _

“But your leg…”

“I don’t need my left foot to drive.” Mac still cringes at the thought of crawling around the seats with his battered ankle. It’s going to hurt like hell, but it’s the only thing they can do. 

Okay,” Bozer says, taking a deep breath. “Mac, I’m about to take my foot off the gas.” Mac nods, and shoves himself up so he’s half sitting on the console, right foot hovering over the pedal. Bozer pulls his foot back, and Mac presses down. He leans forward, bent partly over the dashboard, hands on the wheel as Bozer slides out behind him. 

One of Bozer’s legs slams into Mac’s dangling left one, and he can’t hold back the sharp cry of pain when his injured ankle is jostled. “Sorry, man, my bad my bad,” Bozer apologizes. 

“Don’t worry about it, just get over there.” Mac’s trying to keep the combination of overwhelming pain, the trapped feeling from having someone else so close behind him, even though it’s Bozer,  _ he would never ever do that to you, so stop thinking about it, _ and the rising panic as the car sways back and forth on the thankfully empty highway, from crushing him. 

Finally, although the last few seconds are blurry with agonizing pain and tear-filled eyes, Mac is in the driver’s seat, foot on the gas, and Bozer is leaning out the passenger window. Mac breathes a shaky sigh of relief. Busted ankle aside, being bent over the dash with someone (anyone) squirming around behind him is  _ not _ an experience Mac wants to repeat. 

“I can do this, I can do this.” Mac’s pretty sure Bozer is talking to himself. He guns the engine and the old but powerful car responds, eating up the distance between them and Bruno. Mac drops in behind as the gun turret swings around to the back again, then pulls up alongside Bruno. 

Immediately, the drone collides with them, shoving the car into the guardrail on the driver’s side. Mac hits the brakes and winces at the screech of metal as the rail tears into the side of the car, ripping off the mirror. 

“He’s not going to let us get beside him!” Bozer shouts. “I…” He stops, then pulls off his belt, taking the flashdrive in his teeth and starting to crawl onto the roof of the car.

“What are you doing?” Mac yells. 

“Just keep it steady!” Bozer’s feet are thumping, and Mac can’t tell what’s happening. And then he sees legs dangling in front of the windscreen. Bozer has looped his belt around the barrel of Bruno’s gun and Mac watches as he shoves off from the top of the car, sliding forward on the barrel like it’s a zipline and then grabbing the back edge of Bruno’s roof and hoisting himself on. He rolls over, panting and then gives Mac a shaky grin and a thumbs-up. 

_ I’ve done everything I can for him. The rest is up to him. _

He drops back, pulling over to the side of the road. “Matty, ETA on those fighter jets?”

“Four minutes.” Matty’s voice is tense and shaking slightly. “It’s all up to Bozer now.”

Valerie leans forward from the back seat, her fingers clenching around Mac’s arm. “I’m scared, Mac.” 

“So am I, Val.” He helps her up into the front and holds her tight, tucking her head against his shoulder.  _ She doesn’t need to see what happens if it all goes wrong. _ “So am I.” 

* * *

Bozer can’t believe he’s doing this.  _ Okay, so I can believe the part where I jumped onto a moving death robot like I’m Ethan Hunt or something. _ It’s just part of the daily life of a Phoenix agent. What he can’t believe is that he’s risking his life for someone who’s been harassing his best friend.  

He could see them working on that dish in the rearview mirror, and Allie’s intent was as clear as Mac’s refusal.  _ He’s done everything short of telling her to her face that he’s not interested, and she isn’t taking no for an answer.  _ It bothers Bozer to see that happen to anyone. He really hates seeing it happen to Mac.  _ He’s used to people not respecting his refusals. To people who take advantage of him without his consent.  _ He’s already expecting to have to deal with the prison nightmares the next few nights, especially if Mac has to go on painkillers for that  _ clearly _ broken ankle. 

“Allie!” He shouts. 

“Bozer?” Her voice is disbelieving. “How did you get up there?” 

“I'll explain later.” He looks down and immediately regrets it, the road is flashing by much too fast. “Short version, we have a way to reinstall the kill switch but you have to plug the flashdrive I have into Bruno directly. And I’m not really sure how to give it to you.”  _ I didn’t really think this part through. Oh man, I am turning into Mac. _

“There's an air vent for cooling the internal computer systems on the back near the driver's side. I mean, if there was a driver.”

Bozer reaches his hand over the side, eyes squinted closed. He can feel the vent, but when he tries to poke the flashdrive through he’s met with resistance. “Allie, there’s some kind of barrier!”

“There’s a mesh grating on the inside, I’m trying to get it off!” Allie shouts, then curses, and Bozer hears a tool clatter. “Okay, I almost took my finger off but you should be able to get it inside now.” 

“Okay, there you go.” Bozer says.

“Got it.”

“Just plug and play. And hurry.” He can hear the low whine of airplane engines, those F-22s have to be close. “Is there, like, a status bar or anything?” 

“No. No, I don't think it's gonna work!” Allie shouts. Bozer closes his eyes.  _ So this is how I die.  _ And then there’s a stuttering whine of an engine slowing, and Bruno stops so quickly Bozer rolls into the gun turret. 

“Matty, call off the air strike now! Bruno's offline. I repeat, call off the air strike now!” It seems like the only thing he can hear is the roar of those incoming engines.

Matty’s voice on comms buzzes through the overwhelming sound. “Air strike, abort. Repeat: abort.” Bozer leans back on the roof of the drone and begins to laugh as the planes roar overhead, returning to base. “Cut it a little closer there next time, Bozer. Some of us are actually still breathing.”

_ Damn I hope Leanna hears about this.  _ She’s CIA, maybe somehow the story of how one of their own was saved by Phoenix Foundation agent Wilt Bozer will make its way back to her. Just to be safe, he’s totally going to call her later.  _ This is pretty badass if I do say so myself.  _

He slides down from the roof just as Allie opens the doors. “Thank you,” She says quietly, and Bozer wonders if he’s actually detecting a trace of humility somewhere in there. “You just saved my life.”

“That’s my job,” Bozer says stiffly.

“I don’t think I can thank you and Mac enough…” He has a very, very strong idea of what kind of thanks Allie wants to offer, at least to Mac, and he’s done.  _ This is gonna stop right now. Before she makes him even more upset. _

“Listen, Allie, Mac’s too nice a guy to say this to your face so I’m gonna say it for him. He’s no interested. Not at all. So stop trying to hook up with him.” 

“What, are you his boyfriend?” She asks, and there’s a sneer in her voice and face.  _ So much for that humility I thought I saw. _

“No. I’m his brother.” Bozer meets Allie’s eyes unflinchingly. “And if you lay so much as a finger on him again, I’m gonna break a few of those perfect teeth. Mama told me never to hit a lady, but someone who doesn’t respect other people, well, that’s not very ladylike.” 

He turns around when he hears an engine pulling up behind him. Mac parks the Camaro, and Valerie jumps out, latching onto Bozer in a huge hug. “You’re alive!” She says excitedly. “You scared me, Bozer!” 

“Sorry about that.” He puts an arm around her shoulder. “But I’m okay, I promise.”

“Were you scared?”

Bozer looks up at Mac, and he can see the same relief in his best friend’s eyes as in Valerie’s. “Yeah, I was.” He bends down. “But,” he winks, “it was also really, really cool.” 

“Boze…”Mac says, and he hears the slight scolding.  _ Oh. Right, Impressionable child.  _

“But don’t you ever, ever try that. Hear me?” He leans in even closer, and lowers his voice to a whisper. “Unless, you know, the fate of the world is at stake.”

Valerie giggles. “I heard that!” Mac shouts from the car. “Don’t listen to him, Val. He’s a bad influence.”

“You’re a bad influence!” Bozer shouts back, and Mac starts to laugh. Boze doesn’t look back at Allie sitting on the rear bumper of her failed drone as he gets into the Camaro and listens to the sirens screaming up.   _ We did it. We actually freaking did it. _

* * *

PHOENIX MEDICAL

MAC REALLY NEEDS TO STOP COMING HERE

“Non-displaced fracture of the fibula, and a small hairline fracture in the tibia.” Mac sighs, looking down at his swollen ankle.  _ I knew this was what I was going to hear but I really really was still hoping it wouldn’t be broken. _ “Since neither of them are complete breaks we’ll be using a boot instead of a cast, to try and keep the ankle joint from stiffening up.” Dr. Grey looks up at him. “That said, I expect you to wear it  _ exactly _ as directed. Or I will put you in a cast. If I hear the slightest rumor about you running around without the proper support…” 

“I know.” Mac says. “You’ll stick me in a protective bubble for my own safety.”

“And Jack will help me do it.” She raises an eyebrow at him. “If he comes in here for a heart attack I’m going to blame you for giving it to him.” 

He actually likes Dr. Grey. She tries to make sure she sees him if she happens to be in when he comes. He first met her after...after Bishop; he wasn’t comfortable letting any of the male doctors near him for the physical exam. Grey had been gentle but efficient, getting the worst out of the way as quickly as possible. Since then, he’s asked for her if he’s coherent enough to do so whenever he comes in. 

She gives his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Try and stay out of trouble for a while, will you? As much as I enjoy your company...and the random paperclip sculptures I inevitably find in my exam room, I’d prefer you be walking around in one piece a little more often.” 

“I really try.” He does. It just seems like fate or something has it in for him. 

He really does prefer the boot one of the nurses brings in to having a cast. The one on his hand last summer almost drove him crazy. It was almost impossible to shower, and it made doing any of his usual inventing ten times as difficult. It’s not quite so bad on a foot, but he still has bad memories of when he had a leg cast after the treehouse incident.  _ James didn’t care how much I struggled with it, he wouldn’t lift a finger to help me figure anything out. Said it was my fault I had it and that I needed to solve whatever problems I was having.  _

The team is in the waiting room when he walks out. Jack’s holding a magic marker. “Oh man, they didn’t give you a cast? They get upset when I sign the boot things.” He hands the marker off to Riley. “Dude, I told you the robots were bad news. Did you listen? No.” He gestures vaguely to Mac’s foot. “Maybe next time you’ll take old Jack seriously, huh?”

“For the last time, it wasn’t actually Bruno going rogue. It was Korman who hacked in and controlled him, so your argument is invalid.” 

Riley cuts Jack off before he can continue the argument. “Speaking of our friendly neighborhood hacker, Korman's been remanded for psychiatric evaluation to see if he's fit to stand trial.” 

“Nothing crazy about wanting the world to be a more peaceful place,” Mac says. 

“You mean except for the part where he hijacked a military drone and tried to attack the Pentagon with it to make his point?” Jack asks. 

“Yeah, except for that part. Shut up,” Mac groans playfully.

“ _ You _ shut up.”

“I’m walking wounded. You’re not allowed to be mean to me.” Mac punches Jack’s shoulder playfully as they head upstairs to the War Room, where Matty’s waiting to give them the all clear to go home. 

Mac’s glad to see Valerie standing with her dad next to Matty when he opens the door. She seems to have recovered pretty well from the chaos, although she gives Mac a sad, sympathetic smile when she sees the boot on his leg. “Does it still hurt?”

“You should see the other guy,” Mac jokes lamely. 

“Actually, I think Bruno came out with less damage than you,” Bozer says. “But if you’re talking about Martin Korman, then six weeks in a boot definitely beats twenty to life in federal lockup, or a criminal psych facility. Wherever they decide to put him.” 

“Well, however it works out in the courts, at least we know Korman won't be allowed near a computer for the rest of his life,” Riley says. 

“Is it weird that I'm kind of offended that he didn't hack our drone?” Bozer asks. He’s holding something in his hands. 

“Super weird,” Jack says. 

“At least we'll always have this, right?” Bozer holds up what’s in his hand, it’s the charred section of their drone that had its name on it. “It's all that's left of Dalton's Nightmare after Bruno blew it up. Hey, Valerie, how’d you like a souvenir to hang up in that treehouse, huh?” He hands it to her, and Valerie grins, then leans into her dad’s side, letting him put an arm around her shoulder. 

“So the government spent a half a million bucks on some metal wall art?” Jack chuckles. 

“Trust me, it's not the worst purchase they've ever made.” Matty smiles. “Come on, pizza's on me if anyone's hungry. That goes for you two as well.” She glances at the Lawsons.

“Now how could we say no to pizza?” Mr. Lawson says, as he and Val follow Matty to the door.  

“Sure,” Riley says.

“I'm in,” Bozer raises a hand. 

“Now you're talking.” Jack starts to walk out, but Riley stops in the door and turns around to face him. 

“Wait, you never told me what happened at your reunion.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah.” Jack grins. “So, so check it out. Jimmy, he’s got the perfect life, right? Well, so do I, and I showed him.” He pulls out his phone. “You know, I was standing in the bathroom, just about ready to throw in the towel and admit the guy’s got me beat, and you texted me. Sent me this picture. And it reminded me that, you know, whether him one-upping me changed the course of my life or not, it’s for the best, really.”

“What did you tell him?” Riley asks.

“Nothing they can get me on the Espionage Act for. Just that I have a job that lets me travel all around the world, and that I’m mentoring two amazing kids. Well, not kid kids, but you know what I mean.” He puts one arm around Mac’s shoulder and one around Riley’s. “And besides, ya know what? Jimmy finally admitted that he cheated to beat me out at homecoming king.”

“Cheated how?” Mac asks.

“He stuffed the ballot box. Can you believe that?” 

“Seriously?” Riley says. “And after he unburdened his soul, what did you, what did you do?” 

“Let him off the hook.”

“You did?” Mac asks. Although he’s not surprised. Jack’s got a softer heart than most people would give him credit for. 

“Yeah. Yeah, to be honest with you, I'm glad he cheated. I mean, if I'd have won homecoming king back in high school, I might have peaked. You don't want to be peaking in high school, trust me. But losing gave me the sense that I have something to prove, you know? It kind of fueled the rest of my life. It's probably why I joined the Army, became a Delta, applied for the CIA. It’s probably the only reason I met you both. You know, losing that stupid homecoming king crown, which means nothing, was probably the best thing I ever could have done for myself. And for you two. Be honest, am I the best dad you could ask for or not?”

“Yeah you are, old man.” Mac says.

“That’s great,” Riley says.  “I just, I wish you had said something sooner.”

Mac frowns, and then realizes what she meant when they step out into the hall. Confetti flies everywhere, people are throwing balloons in the air, and a huge banner unfurls from the ceiling.  _ Jack Dalton, Homecoming King 2018. _

It looks like half the Phoenix staff is standing in the hall, clapping and cheering. Jill steps out of the crowd, holding a scepter and crown. “You won by a unanimous vote, Jack.”

“Man, y'all didn't have to do this.” But Jack is grinning and starting to laugh. He looks a little bit in awe, and Mac can’t help but smile.  _ For all the joy he spreads around, he deserves to get a little of it back.  _ Mac’s lost count of how many times Jack’s been able to put a smile like that on  _ his _ face. 

“Oh, so you don't want the crown?” Jill says, making a show of turning around. 

“You kidding me? Of course I want it.” Jack bends down so Jill can settle the crown onto his head, then starts doing a royal wave, smiling so wide Mac thinks his face might split. Matty and Val and even her dad are cheering. Mac starts clapping, and so does Riley, and then Jack is laughing, and for one moment, it doesn’t feel like they’re secret agents, like they almost died yesterday, like they might have to do it all again tomorrow. It just feels like they’re family. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who aren't on Tumblr, I have a small announcement...I'm working on an original novel version of my vampire series, "Night+Hunt"! Which means that most of my other writing projects have been put on hold while I write the first draft. I'm hoping to be able to continue to update Wunderkind weekly, but at the moment I can't promise that, so there may be a brief summer hiatus sometime in July and/or August if it becomes necessary. Just wanted to give you all a little heads-up just in case! If you're at all interested in following that project you can see my weekly updates and other random tidbits on Instagram @thethistlegirlwrites !


	15. Mardi Gras Beads+Chair

###  214-Mardi Gras Beads+Chair

MICRONESIA, SOUTH PACIFIC

IN THE MIDDLE OF A CATEGORY 5

“I can’t believe I’m going to die in a portable toilet with you, Jack.” Sarah groans. “This is officially worse than the Siberian bunker.” Mac has no idea how that actually went down but he’s willing to bet she’s right.  _ There was probably more space. And it  _ must _ have smelled better.  _ Between that and the constant tumbling, he’s trying not to be sick because that will only make everything so much worse. 

“We’re not gonna die!” Mac shouts, trying to make himself heard over the rising wind, then gasps as they’re picked up by the wind and then slammed hard onto the ground. His ankle really doesn’t like this.  _ I shouldn’t even be out of the boot yet, but this was important.  _ And technically he did have the boot on when they got here.  _ It wasn’t my fault Velcro straps came in handy… _ As it turns out, a cumberbund held in place with two belts is really not an effective replacement.  _ It was worth a try. _

“Really? Because it sure feels like it!” Jack shouts. 

“If it wasn’t for you tipping off those guards that we were onto their bosses with your ‘good old Texas hell yeah’, we wouldn’t be in this mess right now!” Sarah argues, trying to brace herself and failing. . 

“You called us!” Jack insists, trying to keep his foot on the toilet lid. At this point it’s a lost cause.

“Hey, if you want to leave, the door is right there.” Mac’s just trying to breathe. Or not. Whatever makes him not throw up. 

“Hey, Sarah, this mission was supposed to be easy. Fly to a beautiful island nation, crash a government shindig and get proof of a brewing coup d'etat. That’s exactly what you said on the phone.” 

“Which we did! Mission accomplished!” Sarah grunts as they’re slammed against what is either a tree or an electric pole. Mac winces at the loud crack.  _ Of all the ways to die, this is not how I want to go. _

“Mission  _ not _ accomplished!” Jack yells. 

Sarah rolls her eyes. Even if they haven’t been partners in years, there’s that playful banter still there that Mac remembers from the other ops they’ve been on together. “Number one: we just found evidence that not one, but two generals were planning to overthrow the government. Not exactly a good idea to wait out the storm in a building locked with them, okay? And number two…”

“Hey! Do me a favor, huh? You keep number one and number two out of this, you hear me?” Jack groans, and Mac is pretty sure he’s not the only one whose stomach is very unhappy with this plan. 

“It’s no my fault we’re in a porta-potty, alright?” Sarah shouts. “All I said was, we need a plan B. And Mac took it from there!” 

Mac takes a shaky breath and begins defending his choice. “The structural integrity of these things is actually pretty solid, because of the one-piece molding, the-the lightweight polymer.” Maybe science facts can take his mind off his stomach. 

“Portable toilet facts? Really? That's the last thing that I'm gonna hear before I die?” Jack asks. 

“We're not gonna die! We're not gonna die! Okay? We're gonna be fine.”  _ I’m not sure who I’m actually trying to reassure at this point. _

“I don't think we're in agreement on what the word "fine" means,” Sarah says. Her face is slightly green too, although Mac’s not sure if that’s just the faint light filtering through the plastic sides. 

“Okay, okay, all right, fine! You're right. It was a bad idea! Probably one of the worst ideas I've ever had.” His stomach will agree with him there. “But I'm allowed to be wrong every now and then, aren't I?” 

“I don't disagree, hoss, but this time, it may be the last time.” There’s another massive gust, and they’re tumbling again, and Mac finally loses the battle with the nausea.  _ Well, that just made everything worse.  _

“Sorry,” He gasps out when he’s capable of doing so. Jack and Sarah just give him looks that are a mixture of fellow suffering and frustration that now they’re probably going to end up doing the same. 

Jack sighs. “Okay, I’m gonna be the first to say it. This was the crappiest mission ever.” 

“Jack… Sarah sighs. “Really? You’re like a twelve year old.”

“Growing old is inevitable, Sarah. Growing up is optional.” 

* * *

PHOENIX LOCKER ROOM

“I’m never going to get this smell out.” Jack can’t help but chuckle as he watches Mac scrub shampoo through his hair for what must be the third time. 

“Well, maybe next time you’ll think through the logistics of your perfect escape plan, huh?” Jack chuckles, shutting off the water in his own shower stall and grabbing a towel. 

“You’re just laughing because you don’t have hair enough to worry about.” Mac says, and there’s a mischievous smirk forming on his face. 

“Oh, that was below the belt, kiddo.” Jack tries to sound as falsely insulted as possible. “But that means if anything, you oughta be apologizing to Sarah.” She’s going to need a longer shower than Mac. 

Jack can’t lie and say working with his former partner didn’t remind him of everything he missed out on with her.  _ But we were always better as work partners than anything more. _ They’re too much alike. But all his rationalizing doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt to know she’s out of his reach forever.  _ It’s good to know she’s happy. _ Jack caught her grinning at a text message her husband sent before they got on their transport plane, when she told him she was alright after the storm.  _ She’s happy, and in the end that’s the best. If I really love her, that’s what I should always want most. _

“Just trying to make you smile,” Mac says, shutting off the water and grabbing his own towel. “Someone’s gotta keep your mind off the fact that Sarah flies back to DC as soon as we’re done with debriefing.” 

“I’m fine with it.” Jack turns around with the best smile he can muster. “This is the face of a man who is totally okay with his old flame having her own life, okay?”

“No, that is the face of a man who is  _ trying very hard _ to be okay with the woman of his dreams married to someone else.” Mac shakes his head, water flying everywhere from his hair like he’s a puppy who was playing in a lake. 

“Okay, okay, so I’m not totally over her. But do I have regrets?” Jack frowns. “Okay, maybe a couple. But you heard us fighting in that porta-potty, do you really think we coulda lasted?”

“I don’t know, because tumbling through a Cat 5 in a portable toilet isn’t really the kind of marriage stressor counselors tend to address.” Mac drags his t-shirt over his head, making his already chaotic hair even worse. It finally grew out enough to have a proper cut after Jack’s hack job, but it still has that stubborn cowlick Jack thinks is cute and Mac slaps his hand for fussing with. 

“But that’s just it, man. There’s no normal in either of our lives. We get along as well as we do because we’re both adrenaline junkies. We love the fast pace, the cheating death at every turn. But once we got out of the life, what would we do?”

“Who says you’d live long enough to retire?” Mac chuckles.  _ True. There aren’t a lot of pensions given in this line of work. _

“Well, unless you’ve managed to solve the secret of time travel, hoss, this whole conversation’s a moot point, because Sarah is happily married and I can’t go back and do anything differently.” 

“But you can go forward,” Mac says. “You and Diane…” 

“Diane still says she doesn’t want to talk to me.”   _ After I, in her words, ‘exposed her daughter to the risk of working with a criminal’ _ .  _ And okay, maybe some of this is my fault because I went off on her about saying stuff like that about Mac.  _ Now that he’s away from it, cooled off some, he can see that she probably isn’t actually worried about Mac being a problem, it was probably the principle of the thing.  _ And I guess I can see her point.  _ I  _ went ballistic on him after North Korea because I thought he was going to pull some stunt and get Riley killed. _ Jack’s come to see Mac as such an immediate member of his little family that it’s easy to forget it took  _ him _ a while to see past the orange jumpsuit and the terrorism charges. 

He should call Diane and apologize. Maybe he will once they go home.  _ Although if she wants to meet for dinner and talk, maybe I should take another shower and put on cologne.  _ Because right now he’s pretty sure this is literally ‘eau de toilette’. 

“You didn’t try with Sarah, and now you regret it. Don’t do that with Diane too.”

“Who are you, my life coach?”

“Just returning the favor,” Mac chuckles. “You’ve given me a lot of good advice, and despite the fact that relationships are not something I know much about, I can see a pattern here.” He shrugs. “If you want a second opinion, I’m sure Cage would be happy…”

“I am not discussing my love life with the Jedi mind reader.” Jack chuckles. “I’ll call Diane once we’re outta here, sound good?”

Mac nods, then picks up his phone and sighs when he sees the message on it. “Um, can we swing by medical? Dr. Grey found out what I did to my boot and she might be a little bit pissed.” 

“Can you tell her if you hadn’t destroyed it she’d be trying to put little pieces of us back together?” Jack asks. “Maybe she’ll be happier about it if she realizes what you did kept her from having three very, very messed up patients.”

“I hope she doesn’t think I’m making up that whole ‘we almost fell into a ventilation fan’ story, though.” Mac chuckles. “Because you couldn’t stop talking about how we were recreating  _ Mission Impossible _ .”

“Yeah, well, I don’t think Tom Cruise went through a hurricane in a porta-potty.” Jack laughs. 

“That’s not really blockbuster movie material,” Mac mutters, sniffing experimentally at his skin. “But maybe Dr. Grey’ll feel sorry for me and spare me the lecture about ruining a perfectly good medical boot.”

“More like she’ll spare you the lecture because she’s gonna want you and that smell out of her office as soon as possible.” 

“Now who’s insulting who?” Mac asks, punching Jack’s shoulder playfully. Jack grins and shakes his head.  _ If nothing else, at least my kids love me. _

* * *

WAR ROOM

IT’S TOO EARLY IN THE MORNING FOR THIS

Matty doesn’t think she can handle two Dalton-related disasters in one week. At least this one probably won’t leave the War Room needing an air freshener. Then again, it’s wisest to never underestimate Jack’s potential for disaster. Or at least when he and Mac are together.  _ According to Sarah, it was Jack’s fault they got caught snooping through offices at the gala, but the hiding place in the portable toilet was Mac’s plan.  _ Matty remembers a few too many debriefs where Sarah had to explain Jack’s random lapses of judgement.  _ Felt like old times. _

So does this. Although this is one of those ‘old times’ that Matty was hoping could be buried forever.  _ I have a few too many memories of very uncomfortable budget meetings.  _

So when Jack opens the door with an enthusiastic greeting, Matty just glares at him. “Hey, what's up?” He stops, noticing her death stare. “Ooh. Mama looks pissed.”

“Excuse me?” The death glare has just doubled in intensity. 

“Well, I'm just saying, you don't look as...um...sunshiny as usual.”

“Okay, I would like for you to switch to your inner voice now.” Mac, behind Jack, is cringing back like a scolded puppy.  _ Damn it, Jack, the way you talk about him is rubbing off on me.  _ “'m serious, Jack.”

“All right. What's going on? Is this about Murdoc?” Jack’s voice has gone from goofy to deadly in moments, and his fingers are hovering over where his sidearm is normally holstered. 

“I wish, but unfortunately, it's about another notorious figure from the past. Someone I thought I'd buried a decade ago.”

“Who?” Mac asks. 

“Duke Jacoby.”

“Ooh, no way. How is that even possible?” Jack asks. 

“Wait. Am-am I supposed to know who this person is?” Bozer asks. “Because I don’t. What is he? A drug dealer? Gunrunner? Is he a mercenary?” 

“Depends on the day of the week,” Riley says, and Matty sees the slight evil glee in her face as she tosses a picture of Jack, with a Hawaiian shirt and a truly horrendous haircut, to the screen. 

“Uh, why does Duke Jacoby have Jack's face?” Bozer asks. “Well, at least I  _ think _ that’s Jack’s face…” 

“It's one of my old CIA covers, Bozer.” Jack glances at Mac, who’s smirking but quickly stops and then shrugs when Jack glares. “Don’t look at me like that, it was the 2000s. Everyone wore their hair like that!”  _ The sad thing is that isn’t even the worst. The mustache was definitely the top for bad style decisions.  _

She begins to explain for the benefit of the people in the room who haven’t been in any way involved with the op. “After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was basically the Wild West, so Duke was sent in to keep an eye on all the sinister activity going on in and around the Port of New Orleans.”

“With Duke's help, the Agency was able to disrupt over 100 criminal and terrorist plots.” Riley looks up from her rig. “Before my time, but I was still hearing about him when I got recruited.” 

“Yeah. I mean, he was one of the best CIA covers, like, ever.” Jack puffs out his chest a little. 

“He was also one of the most expensive CIA covers, like, ever.” Matty says, and watches him quickly deflate. Jack had a talent for picking up the most flamboyant covers the agency had to offer. Something Matty always wanted to strangle him for when she had to explain things to her superiors. “So much so that the top brass considered having him assassinated. They called it ‘Operation Budget Cuts’.” 

“Well, by that point, I almost wish they did kill him off. I hated being that guy.” Jack says, quickly backpedaling. 

“Okay, but if Jack was Duke, and Jack is here, then how exactly has Duke resurfaced in New Orleans?” Mac asks, frowning. 

Riley shakes her head. “I don't know, but two days ago, someone started reactivating Duke's digital footprint in NOLA. Opening new bank accounts, unfreezing old credit cards, accessing his DMV records.” She glances at Matty. “I have alerts set up on all of Jack and my cover IDs, and when they accessed the DMV records the system notified me.”  

“How'd this person get all this info on a CIA cover? And what are they planning on doing with it?” Mac asks.

“Well, that is exactly what I'm taking you and Jack to New Orleans to find out.”

“You're coming with us?” Jack asks, looking if possible even more nervous than he is already. 

“That's how serious this is. Riley, I need you here, combing through both the Phoenix and CIA networks. Find out if someone hacked in and stole Duke's info.”

“Okay.”

“I'll be sure to bring you back some beignets, Riley,” Bozer says.

Matty hates to kill the enthusiasm, but she has to allocate her agents where they’ll be most useful, and right now she needs him here as well. “Actually, Bozer, you're staying here to work on another assignment. Then you'll assist Riley in the War Room.”

“So I guess you can pick us up some donuts,” Riley says with a smile. Bozer rolls his eyes, but he’s chuckling when he walks out. 

“All right, people, we've got work to do. Mac, Jack, wheels up in 20.” 

Both of them nod, looking a little concerned and jittery. “Yes, ma'am.” 

* * *

THE BIG EASY

LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL...AT LEAST FOR NOW

It’s been almost ten years since Jack last set foot in New Orleans. But the smells of grease frying and muggy swamp air, and the sounds of streetcar bells and the Creole French conversations are as familiar as if he’d never left. “Man, it's weird being back here. I was really hoping Duke had said good-bye to this place for good.”

“You've been checking over your shoulder ever since we got here,” Mac comments. “I'm guessing Duke had some enemies.”

Jack glances at him. “You know that old-school white pages phone book I have at my house?”

“Yeah. The one that I told you to get rid of because it's pretty much useless?”

“Aside from hiding my secret pizza money stash in?  That's the one.” He glances into the window of a shop they’re passing, hopefully that guy in the Panama hat a block behind them is just an overdressed tourist. “Well, Duke made enough enemies to fill two of 'em. Just showing my face around here is a risk.”

Matty sighs. “Okay, to be fair, Dalton, showing your face anywhere is a risk.”

“Really?” Although he is wanted on five continents under multiple false names and in one small island nation under his real one.  _ It’s a long story. _

“I'm just saying.” She shrugs. “Okay, now where are you taking us?”

“I'm taking you right to the source.” Jack stops on the corner and points to the small, rambling voodoo shop up ahead. The sign has been repainted and the windows aren’t half boarded over anymore, but it still looks just about the same as it did when Duke Jacoby roamed this town. 

And the proprietor still sounds the same. As soon as Jack pushes open the door, he can hear Willy’s theatrical voice. He’s putting on a show for some tourists. 

“I call upon the spirits of the beyond and ask that they give me the power of  _ sight _ !” Jack can smell the flash powder from the doorway. 

He chuckles when the young couple standing in front of Willy gasp and stare at him. They turn and now the stares are pointed Jack’s way. “You can drop the act, Willy. You ain't fooling anybody. Except for maybe these yahoos.”

Willy ignores the indignant gasps from the young woman and hustles the couple to the door. “Show's over. Everyone out.”

Jack moves in closer, and just as fast Willy has his bowie knife pressed against Jack’s throat. He looks way more dangerous with that than with his voodoo props.  _ No need to stick pins in a doll if you can stick a four inch blade into someone’s artery _ . “You have got a lot of nerve coming in here, Jacoby.”

Jack answers with a small jab of his already drawn blade against Willy’s stomach. He knows better than to come into this place without at least one knife ready for immediate use. “I'm still quicker with a blade than you are, old man.”

Willy begins to laugh, and Jack can almost feel the tension in the room defuse like a disarmed bomb. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Mac’s tense expression and wide eyes.  _ That musta freaked him out pretty good.  _ “Hey, you old salty dog. How are you, Duke?” Willy asks. 

“I'm doing good. Good to see you.” He laughs and then turns around to Mac and Matty. “Guys, this is Willy. He is the  _ king _ of the Big Easy underground. Nothing goes on in this town without him knowing about it, and more often than not, he's got a piece of the action, ain't that right?”

Willy shrugs, sheathing his knife. “Well, a man's got to eat, Duke.” 

‘You're right.” Willy frowns when Mac, now clearly more relaxed, leans in toward him, studying his sleeves and the table he was sitting at when they came inside. “Uh, can I help you?” Willy asks, and Jack sees his fingers going for the knife again. 

Mac must see it too, because he pulls back quickly. “Sorry. I was just trying to see how you made the flame so big, but now I see the...um...modified butane lighters and I’m betting flash powder for a kick, yeah? Underneath the sleeves.” Willy’s eyes widen. “That's what I would've done.”  _ Oh I bet you would have been good at a place like this.  _ Half the time the stuff Mac does already feels like magic. Throw in a little mysticism and he’d have people lining up.  _ Although I think I’d be a timy bit concerned about him playing with fire like that.  _

“Uh, who the hell is this, Duke?” Willy asks, voice a mixture of respect and a little aggravation.  _ Gonna have to remind the kid that you don’t go around debunking guys who make their living off stuff like this. Especially not ones who carry knives.  _

“Well, these two are my associates, Willy.” Jack can tell the second Willy lays eyes on Matty, because his whole demeanor changes. He’s got his most charming, debonair smile, and he’s playing up his accent even more than he does for the tourists.

“Are you in town long, man?” 

“Only long enough to find out who's been running around town pretending to be me. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?” Jack asks. It’s not too hard to slide back into Duke’s arrogant, brash persona. The faint accent he used to sport is even back.  

“Well, I would love to help you out, Duke, but first, there's the small matter of the five grand you owe me from that business with the Dominicans.” Willy holds out a hand, clearly he’s just as much a businessman as he was ten years ago. 

Jack pulls out his wallet.  _ Five grand isn’t exactly pocket change, but I knew I’d have to be able to flash the cash as Duke. _ Duke Jacoby was known for being pretty liberal with his ill-gotten gains.  _ On the CIA’s tab of course.  _ This time, it’s on Phoenix’s, and Matty refused to approve his request for any amount, saying she’ll consider reimbursement if it seems warranted. “Right. Here you go.”

“I see now why you haven't mentioned this place before, Duke,” Matty says, smiling slightly.  _ Oh very funny.  _ He’s going to put in for reimbursement, even if Matty denies it, just to make her deal with the paperwork. 

“Just tell us what you know, will you?”

Willy spreads his hands in a gesture of regret. “I'm sorry, Duke. I wish I knew something, but I haven't seen anybody pretending to be you.”

Jack has no reason not to believe him.  _ Well, that’s five grand out for nothing.  _ “Alright. Thanks. It's good to see you.” He turns to Matty and Mac, heading for the door. “Let's go.”

“However, I did see your wife, and, man, she's a knockout.”  _ Wait, what? _

Jack forces himself to act cool when he turns around. “Yeah, thanks, buddy. She's a real peach, huh?” Willy grins toothily.  _ Yep, she’s definitely got looks. _ Willy’s always been a ladies’ man. “You haven't seen her around, have you? I'd like to find her right now.”

“I imagine Dixie Lee's at your new place, Duke.” Willy grins wider and this time the teeth look like a hungry shark.  _ The only thing he likes more than the ladies is the cash.  _ “You  _ do _ remember where your new place is, right? Because if, by some odd chance, you've forgotten your own address, I'd be happy to remind you,” he clears his throat deliberately, “for a small fee, of course.”

“Of course. You know, I'm a little...a little light.” He snaps his fingers, gesturing to Matty. “Hey Matty, give me a little scratch, will you?” The look on her face is almost worth the fact that he’s probably never going to see a reimbursement for his five grand now. 

* * *

DUKE JACOBY’S HOUSE

PROBABLY STILL TECHNICALLY BREAKING AND ENTERING

Mac slips his knife’s nail file blade between the window sill and sash, catching and disengaging the lock. He shoves the window open, wincing at the beeping coming from inside.  _ I was afraid of that.  _ He didn’t see any wires on the window, but this is probably one of those magnet operated alarms.  _ Good thing we have a plan for that. _ Granted, he had a plan for it too, but that involved a little more incidental property damage and Jack insisted that since this is technically  _ his _ mortgage, he’d rather they did this the less drastic way. 

Mac pulls himself inside and hurries over to the alarm system’s control panel. “Okay Riley, it’s a SafeSet 2400. What’s the override code for that?” Mac doesn’t particularly want the cops descending on the place.  _ We still don’t know what kind of international agent we might be up against here. It’s way out of their normal line of work, so it’s best if we keep this in-house. _

Riley talks him through the disarm, and then Mac opens the door for Jack and Matty. 

“What is the world coming to when I have to have you break into my own house?” Jack asks. He’s been capitalizing on every bit of being Duke, and it’s equal parts funny and sort of weird. 

“What did you do to make your better half change the locks?” Matty snarks back. She’s been purposefully baiting Jack since he made her pay the guy in the voodoo shop for this address. 

“Clearly,  _ I  _ am the better half here,” Jack insists. “I’m not going around stealing CIA cover identities.” Matty rolls her eyes. 

“Maybe you should tell Diane you’re already married?” Mac smirks.  _ According to Jack, they talked things out some, and she’s still a little mad but not ‘never wants to see him again’ mad. _ This might tip the scales a little, though. 

“Shut up.  _ I _ am not married. Duke Jacoby wasn’t even married!” Jack insists. 

“Okay, search this house. There has to be something here to tell us who we’re dealing with.” Matty glances around. Mac can already tell this house is a recent purchase.  _ But it would take longer than a day to get this kind of place set up. _ There’s no way someone bought a house in the timeframe Riley was describing. 

“Riley, how long did you say it’s been since someone started reopening Duke’s information?”

“It’s been a little more than forty hours at this point.”

“A little fast to get a mortgage, don’t you think?” Mac asks. 

“Legally,” Riley says. “But if you’re good enough to hack into CIA records databases, you’re good enough to change the status of a foreclosure.” 

“Well, it looks like we finally know what our mystery wife has been doing with Duke’s good credit,” Matty says. Mac glances at the three cell phone boxes and the laptop on a coffee table. “Who needs three identical brand-new cellphones?”

“Apparently my wife has met our son,” Jack says. “That’s called ‘being prepared for Mac’.” 

“Or ‘being prepared to make wireless explosives’,” Mac suggests. “We have no idea what kind of people we might be dealing with here.”  _ Anyone who hacks the CIA is serious. _ “I’m going to check the rest of the house for supplies. Fertilizer, household chemicals, anything they could be using for a bomb.” 

“And I’ll have Riley start scanning the computer.” Matty opens the laptop and plugs a flashdrive into it. “Riley, you’re up.” 

Mac starts making his way through the house, listening to Riley through comms while he searches the closets, checking for tripwires or trigger switches on the doors.  _ Nothing about this whole thing makes sense.  _ Someone hacks the CIA, steals an entire covert profile, then settles into a house, buys multiple burner phones, and hangs around town long enough to be seen by one of Jack’s old associates? 

“Whoa, this computer's so brand-new, there's next to nothing on it,” Riley says. 

“Well, "next to nothing" isn't nothing.” Matty’s voice is clipped. 

“It sure isn't. I just found a hidden folder of financial, DMV and IRS info, all belonging to Duke Jacoby.”  _ Closets are clear. _ He moves on to the garage, still listening to the conversation. 

“That's great, Ri. But we already knew Dixie Lee had that stuff on Duke.” 

“Okay, Jack, but what about the other sixteen?”

“What? Sixteen?” 

“I just found sixteen more hidden folders, containing info on sixteen other CIA cover identities. I'm sending them over now, Matty.”

“Some of these are still active. Well, that means we're looking at a much bigger breach than we originally thought. Whoever Dixie is, we need to find her now, before she gets a whole bunch of undercover CIA operatives killed.” The garage is totally empty. No car, not so much as a leaf rake.  _ Well, on the bright side, we’re not looking at a terror cell. On the less good side, we might be looking at a doxxer.  _ Mac’s heard the horror stories of what happens to undercover agents if their information gets leaked.  _ But instead of leaking Jack’s cover, this person is just using it. Why? To try and reconnect with his sources? Find someone who wants to buy a bunch of CIA covers?  _

“Jack, help Mac search the house,” Matty says, and a few minutes later Jack’s following Mac up the stairs. It doesn’t take long to clear the basically empty building, and Mac finds nothing of interest. Not so much as a stray hair or a nail clipping. 

“Man, we have searched every inch of this place, and all we've learned about this woman is that she’s insanely neat. Which is honestly driving me crazy. Can we count that as an irreconcilable difference? Is ‘failure to leave evidence’ grounds for divorce?” 

“More importantly, why would an operative who just stole seventeen CIA cover I.D.s risk this big of a footprint?” Riley says. “I know she didn’t leave any physical evidence, but just having a place like this is a little unusual. Sam’s trying to figure out what the play is here, but she’s pretty sure that doesn’t fit the profile of a career operative.” 

Matty frowns. “Maybe this was part of the plan. She steals a CIA cover, she poses as his spouse, starts making noise to see who will show up.”

“Well, if this is a trap, then we've already walked into it,” Mac says. “And I’ve walked into a lot of traps before, this doesn’t feel like one.” He shakes his head. “It feels more like a really serious case of identity theft.”  _ Like the time someone got hold of Harry’s social security info because he didn’t understand how internet scams work. _ The person who stole his grandpa’s information had bought a bunch of high-end electronics.  _ Like these phones and this computer, and that stereo set in the box over there. _ And the phones might be burners intended for when whoever this is moves on to using the next cover I.D. 

“Look, I want to know who this lady is and where she is right now. Riley?”

“I'm working on it. But I'm having a little trouble. There's not a single active cell phone registered to either Mr. or Mrs. Jacoby.” 

“Well, can you track her credit card purchases?” Mac suggests.  _ That’s how we found out about Harry getting scammed. _

“I could, but she didn't make any purchases with Duke's credit cards. She used them to take out cash advances at ATMs. And before you ask about the ATM cameras, she blocked them. Every last one of them.” 

Jack sighs. “She sounds like a pro. How much cash did the missus take?”

“Just north of fifty grand.”

Jack whistles. “Fifty grand isn't exactly walking around cash. Not even for Duke Jacoby.” 

“No, it is not. Dixie's got a hiding spot in this house somewhere, and we’ve got to find it.” Mac sits down on the sheet-covered couch, rubbing his forehead.  _ We’ve already searched the house, we missed it somehow. _ She has to have put all that money somewhere… “Jack, I need your cell phone.”

“Really? Dude, I literally just replaced it from the last time you got your hands on it.” Jack gestures to the table. “There's three phones sitting right there. And she is my wife, so technically they're half mine. Just use one of those.”

Matty glares at Jack. “Okay, number one, those phones are evidence. Number two, she's not really your wife.And number three, give Mac your damn phone.” 

“Give him your phone!” 

“Do you want me to reimburse you for that ‘business with the Dominicans’ or not, Jack?” Jack sighs and hands over the phone. 

“Yeah, yeah, one, two, three, break Jack's phone, I get it.” Mac pulls out his knife and pops off the back cover. “Well, you don't got to smile while you're breaking it!” Jack says, mock scoldingly.  _ He likes to complain but I know every time he has to go to the Genius Bar for a new one he totally brags up whatever thing I managed to do with the destroyed one. _ Some of the guys who work there have told him, when he comes in to get something of his own replaced.  _ ‘Don’t tell Dalton we told you, but he was going on for twenty minutes about you turning his phone into a remote detonator.’ _

“Sorry.” Mac looks up at him apologetically. “And I'm gonna need a broom.”

“What, are we gonna clean the place?” Jack asks.

Matty glares again.  _ She does that a lot whenever she’s dealing with Jack directly. _ Mac’s pretty sure the War Room screen has had plenty of that directed its way when Matty isn’t physically on the ground with them. “Go get it.”

“What exactly are you taping half my phone to a broom to do, bud?” Jack asks. “Oh wait, are you making some kinda camera we can stick in really small places? Like a super long selfie stick?”

“Actually no, but it is going to help us find Dixie’s stash. It’s a metal detector.” 

“Uh, I hate to rain on your parade, bud, but I don’t think she got fifty grand in nickels and dimes. Unless she’s one heck of a weightlifter.” Jack frowns. 

“No, but ever since 2004, all U. S. currency has been printed using metallic ink. So, more bills means more metal. Now, if we can attach the Hall effect sensor from your phone to this stereo speaker, we should have our own makeshift metal detector, and hopefully be able to find that money.”  

“Awesome.” Jack watches while Mac stands up and starts running the detector over the drawers in the kitchen. The speaker beeps and whines, and Mac stops, then shakes his head.  _ Silverware.  _ He checks for a false bottom anyway; it would have been smart to hide the money there but then again their mystery woman probably didn’t expect someone to go looking for money with a metal detector. 

“How long is this gonna take?” Jack asks. Mac shrugs and pulls open a drawer full of plates, and when he runs the sensor over it the speaker begins squealing. 

“Got something.” He pulls out the plates and feels around the drawer for the latch to lift what’s definitely a false bottom. Inside is a manila envelope with several large stacks of bills, some blank ID bases like the ones Phoenix uses to make covers, and a set of what looks like passport photos, all of a blond woman who’s smiling almost seductively at the camera. “Hello, Mrs. Jacoby.” Mac raises an eyebrow. 

“Let me see that.” Jack snatches the sheet of photos. “Ay, Chihuahua, yes, please. You know, Duke's got kick-ass taste.” 

Matty rolls her eyes at him. “Riley, sending you a picture now of the woman who is  _ not _ Jack's wife.”

“Yeah, but has serious potential.” Jack shrugs when Mac gives him a confused stare. “What? I like a little danger in my relationships.” 

“You’re gonna be in danger of getting your nose bashed in if my mom finds out about this,” Riley says. “Running facial recognition against all databases now.” There’s a pause for several minutes, during which Jack grabs a glass from a cupboard and gets a drink of water, Mac attempts to put the phone back together without destroying it (and spectacularly fails), and Matty takes pictures of whatever she assumes might be evidence in the apartment.

Their comms buzz again, and then Riley is speaking. “Got her. Dixie Lee Jacoby's real name is Darlene Hagen, born February 19…” She trails off. “Oh, I spoke too soon. I'm looking at seven I.D.s from seven states with seven different names, all with the same face.”

“She happen to have any passports as well?”

“I checked but I’m coming up empty on that front. Whoever she is, I don’t think she’s an international player.” 

“Who is this woman?” Jack asks. 

Riley speaks up again. “I don't know about the who, but I might be able to help you with the where. She's not on any law enforcement databases, but I've been running her face against all the security cams and social media posts in New Orleans. And Friar just got a hit on her walking into a jazz club on Royal 20 minutes ago. I'm sending the address now.” 

“All right. Let’s bounce,” Jack says. “I’d kind of like to meet the woman I said ‘I do’ to before I say ‘you have the right to remain silent’ too.” 

* * *

Riley closes down Friar’s search on their mystery woman and turns back to her scans of the Phoenix network. The CIA came up totally clean, and she’s not sure why, so she’s testing her software on their own system, which she already knows should register a hack breach from three days ago when she tested a new firewall.

The alert pings, and Riley frowns. _ So it’s not hacking.  _ She texts Cage to let her know.  _ CIA’s probably going to want her combing their New Orleans team dossiers for a potential leak.  _ It’s odd to not see Sam with the team on comms or right here in the War Room.  _ I can understand not wanting to be a liability on the team, but it feels like a big part of our lives is gone. _ Sam’s only back at her desk in Intelligence Gathering, but now that she’s been with the team a while, it seems different. She misses Sam being snarky with Jack or randomly dropping weird psychology facts. She even misses Sam casually knowing far too much about the black hat side of the law. 

Maybe she’ll walk down and talk to her about this in person.  _ She’s in today, had PT and insisted on staying and doing some desk work. _ Sam’s still having a hard time standing upright after all the surgeries, but she’s as stubborn as Jack.  _ Except Jack wouldn’t have offered to ride a desk all day. _

Riley’s about to stand up, but then her computer pings again. Several times.  _ That’s not a hack notification. That’s the one for outgoing transmissions. _ She grabs up her rig, trying to figure out what’s happening. 

It’s not file transfers. It’s tiny, tiny pieces of data. Small messages.  _ They’re all coming from the lab areas. _ Riley sighs and facepalms.  _ It’s Bozer.  _

It was one thing when all he was doing was illegally staying in contact with his spy school girlfriend.  _ He thinks it’s such a secret but I know, and I know Cage does, and I’m pretty sure Matty and Patty know everything that happens here. _ They have a tendency to break rules around here; Riley dating Nick wasn’t exactly standard procedure. It’s another when he’s using Phoenix encrypted lines to do it.  _ Sooner or later someone other than me is going to do a tech sweep like this and think we have a major problem.  _ Bozer could get fired, or worse sent to a black site. 

But then again, if it’s not him, she can’t afford to assume. They actually might have another mole, and she has to be sure. 

She pushes open the door to the lab. “Hey, Bozer, you alone?” 

Bozer glances up from where he’s putting the finishing touches on a prosthetic mask. “Looks that way. Why? What's up?” 

“I scanned the CIA's network to see if Dixie broke in to steal those cover identities. But I didn't find any sign of a breach.” She sets her computer down on a work table and pulls up the data streams she needs to worry about. 

“That's good news, right?” 

“Not really. It means that somehow Dixie got those covers without hacking. So now we have to consider the possibility of a mole.”

“Ok, that’s definitely not good.”

“Well, I’ve got more bad news too. I used that same scan on our network to test it, see if maybe there was a glitch and we really are just dealing with a hack, and that's when things got a little...weird.”

“Weird how?” Bozer looks just slightly nervous.  _ Yeah, it has to be him. _

“Just like the CIA, I found zero evidence on anyone, well, except me running tests, trying to break into the Phoenix network.” Bozer frowns at her, but she continues.  _ If I don’t say this now I’ll chicken out. _ Why it’s so hard to confront her friend about something they need to talk about doesn't even make sense. “But I did find some hidden, encrypted traffic heading out. These,” she points to the screen, “are encrypted data streams from an unauthorized user. A bunch of small, daily bursts, like, maybe text messages.” She sighs. “And then yesterday at 3:28 p.m. there was a sustained transmission. Like, maybe a phone call.”

Sparky’s voice cuts in over hers.  _ Apparently he’s not programmed for etiquette.  _ “How curious, Bozer. 3:28 p.m. is precisely the same time you were on the phone with…” Bozer jumps up, rushes over, and shuts Sparky off. 

“Thank you, narc.” He sighs, rubbing a hand over his face in a gesture that reminds Riley a lot of Mac.  _ I wonder who learned it from whom?  _ “It's me. It’s Leanna. I mean, it’s both of us. I mean...” He’s stumbling over his words. “You know how when you graduate spy school you’re not supposed to talk to any of the other students ever again?” Riley nods. “Well, you remember how I was talking about Leanna, and what a great agent she was, and how she was super cool and kind of into me?”  _ How could I forget? _ He mentioned her at least once an hour in casual conversations. Even brought up something about her on a mission once. “We...um…we didn’t want to just forget...”

“So instead of following orders, you decided to try and sneak unauthorized encrypted transmissions to your girlfriend  _ through the Phoenix _ ? Bozer, are you  _ trying _ to get caught?”

“No, of course not, but love makes you do crazy things, Riley, I…” He stops, and Riley feels her stomach drop.  _ I’m fine. _ “Oh, my God. That's the first time I've ever admitted I'm in love with Leanna.”

“I...that’s great. Bozer, that’s really great.” She tries to push away that deep seated stab of jealousy.  _ He’s one of your best friends. The fact that he’s got a girlfriend now doesn’t change anything. He’s not going to forget about everyone else in his life. _ Some days abandonment issues from childhood suck. Some days they really suck.  _ First Sam quits the field team, then this... _

“Please. You can't tell Matty.” Mac may have achieved mastery of the puppy eyes, but Bozer is a close second. 

“I don't want to. But if she finds out any other way…”

“Look, I'm sorry you got dragged into this, but I've never met anyone like her before, Riley.”

Riley raises an eyebrow. “Isn't that the same line you used on me when we first met?” 

“Leanna's different. She's special.”  _ Ouch. _ She knows Bozer didn’t mean to hurt her, but that cut deep.  _ It’s not his fault. It’s Elwood’s. _ For making her feel like she was never going to be good enough to convince anyone to stay in her life. She can already feel a breakfast with Mac becoming necessary.  _ It helps to be able to talk to someone who gets it. _ Jack’s great, but he can’t fully grasp the deep-seated nature of that childhood loss.  _ Although he does know about watching someone you care about walk away, not knowing a good thing until it’s gone. _ But she wasn’t dating Bozer, so it’s different. Or at least she thinks it ought to be. 

Bozer’s clearly noticed he’s made her uncomfortable. “I-I mean, we don't work together, so it's not awkward like it was for you and me. Okay, I don't actually know what I'm saying. I'm freaking out here.”

“Listen. I’m not gonna tell Matty, but I need some time to think of what to do, okay?” She grabs her rig and walks out before Bozer can say anything else to unintentionally twist the knife.  _ I’m not afraid of losing anyone. I’m fine. _

* * *

Jack pushes open the door of the Jazz club Riley directed them to. Matty’s still at the house talking to the director of the CIA; Riley found no evidence of a hack and that means they’re looking at the strong possibility of a mole. Matty has to deal with informing the CIA director of that dumpster fire, and Jack doesn’t envy her. _Mole hunts suck._ _But catching Dixie’s still our best chance of identifying who that mole is._ If someone gave her those cover IDs, she has to know something, or have some way to track them. 

He glances at Mac once they step into the darkened room, blinking at the adjustment from the sunlight outside. He has to raise his voice to be heard over the jazz band onstage. “Well, cover me. I'm gonna go introduce myself to my wife.”

Mac nods and slides into a booth near the door. Jack saunters up to the bar and sits down next to a blonde in a red dress that he’s fairly certain is their mark. He leans on the counter and calls over the bartender. “Uh, bourbon. Neat. Please.” He smiles and then turns to the woman beside him.  _ Yep, that’s definitely Dixie. _ “And would you refill this lovely young lady's glass again for me?”

She turns to look at him with a slight frown. “Thanks, but I prefer to pay for my own poison.”

“Yeah, if that were true, you wouldn't be here drinking on my dime.” Her eyes widen.  _ Apparently that hair and mustache really did make me hard to recognize. _ She starts to stand up, but Jack grabs her wrist and pulls her back to her seat, gently enough that he won’t make a scene here. “No, no, no. Wait, wait, hang on now. Just relax.” She glares at him, shaking her wrist slightly to test his grip. “Relax. Don't you want to have a little drinky-poo with your hubby?” 

“What are we drinking to?” 

“To your last days as a free woman.”

“You know, you really look a lot cuter in person. The haircut is a definite improvement, and the mustache, well, that made a huge difference. I actually sort of like this version of Duke.” 

Jack laughs. “Oh, is that your play? Cheap compliments? Then you bat those eyelashes, and you head for the door, is that it?”

“Wouldn't be the first time that little combo got me out of a jam.” She smirks. “Besides, if you really wanted to turn me in, you would've brought cops. So, what do you want, sugar?” 

“Answers. You can start with your name and who you work for.” 

Dixie gives him a coy grin. “My name you're gonna have to earn. And who says I work for anyone?”

“Come on, you lifted seventeen I.D.s. You expect me to believe you did all that on your own?”

“I'm a woman of many talents.” She smiles and runs a finger around the lipstick-stained rim of her glass.  _ One of them probably isn’t international agent. _ She didn’t react like most of them do.  _ If she was she could have shaken me and tried to run. And would have. Knowing that I know about her stealing the cover IDs.  _ But it seems like she doesn’t even really know what she has her hands on.  _ Which is working in our favor.  _

“I bet.” 

“Another one for you, Ms. Jackoby?” The bartender asks, horribly mangling the name in a way Jack is sadly used to. 

“It's Jacoby,” he and Dixie answer at the same time, and the bartender raises his eyebrows at them. 

Dixie laughs. “Another round for me and my husband. And keep the change.” She drops a hundred on the table and the bartender’s eyes get even wider. 

“Ooh. Wow. Just like that. Right in front of me. Okay.” Jack shakes his head and takes a bigger drink from his glass. “Maybe I should make mine a double.” 

“Why have money if you're not gonna spend it?”

“Mmm, Ms. Jacoby, you are a cute one, I'll give you that much.” He sets his glass down. “And you’re good. Real good. But I think you're a plain old con artist who's in way over her head.” Unless she’s the best grifter he’s ever seen come out of a dark agency, she’s not a spy.  _ Even Cage couldn’t pull off this level of believable.  _ Dixie didn’t see him coming, at least not recognizing him as a threat, when he was exhibiting all the markers of coming in with a purpose. She’s not hyper-vigilant. This is someone cool and confident in her work, but not someone who nearly dies on a regular basis. 

“Oh, honey, I think we both know there's nothing old or plain about me.” She smiles and raises her own glass. 

“Listen, Dixie. Or whatever your name is. Playtime is over. Okay? This is serious business. You're gonna have to tell me right now how you got my identity and the sixteen others. For your own safety. You understand?” 

She catches his gaze and holds it. “You know, most marks only care about their bank balance How much money they've lost, if they're gonna get it back. And no one's ever followed me in person, let alone this fast.” 

“Just tell me how you got the I.D.s.” Jack is beginning to feel like she’s turning the tables on him, and he really hates that.  _ It never ends well. _

Dixie continues with a self-satisfied smirk on her face, like a cat who just tipped over the cream skimmings. “And now that I think about it, there was something off about the paper trail on you and your sixteen friends. Zero fraud claims, not even a late payment. It was a little too clean, a little too perfect.”  _ Damn it. _ She’s got brains to go with those looks, and a lot of them. _ She may not have known exactly what she had, but she knows it’s not normal. _ And if she does figure it out, she’s probably going to play hardball with them.  _ She’s too smart not to use a bargaining chip like that. _

“What can I say? I'm a responsible guy.”

Dixie laughs. “Oh, come on, sugar. We both know that's not true. I may be just a plain old con artist, but you ain't Duke Jacoby because Duke Jacoby doesn't exist. So, why don't you start by telling me what your real name is?”  _ I guess I asked for it, didn’t I? _

* * *

Mac tucks himself into the corner of the booth, trying to be as invisible as possible. He’s had plenty of practice with that.  _ As long as I stay still, don’t move a lot or do anything to draw attention to myself, people probably won’t notice what I’m doing. _ He orders a drink when someone comes around and asks him, but doesn’t touch it when it comes.  _ If we need a diversion, alcohol and the flame from the lighter I may or may not have lifted from Willy’s place would do the trick. _ He knows that probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but he had the feeling it might come in handy. 

He can’t hear exactly what Jack is saying to Dixie, or whoever she really is, but he can hear the low hum of voices and the one he recognizes as Jack’s. He can pick Jack out of a crowd anywhere; that Texas accent is the most familiar voice in the world to him now. 

He’s still keeping an eye on the door, and when a group of scary-looking guys walk in and start holding up a crinkled 8x10 of Jack with his Duke Jacoby haircut and mustache, he reaches for his comms. Not quite fast enough though, because one of the men turns to  _ him. _

“Hey, you seen this guy?”

Mouth dry, Mac shakes his head, trying to think of what Jack would say in this kind of situation. “Nope. What’d he do, steal your lady? Or you just looking for him for that crime of fashion facial hair?” 

The man just huffs and turns away, and Mac switches on his comms with slightly shaky fingers.  _ I’m not used to people not realizing I’m with Jack.  _ His worst fear is being made in the field and used as leverage against his partner.  _ If they knew threatening me would make Jack give himself up, they’d do it in a heartbeat. _ “Duke, you got some fans looking for you. Front door.” 

“Copy that.” And then Jack gasps and Mac sees him double over and Dixie dash for the back door. “Ooh! Ow!” Jack groans. Mac jumps up and runs toward him as the goons with the photo glance toward the commotion. 

Jack’s already running toward the door, stumbling a little and leaning protectively over where Dixie must have slammed her knee into a rather sensitive spot. They reach the door together, and Mac can just see Dixie’s red dress disappearing around a corner. He winces when the door slams again and shots pepper the wall in front of them. He ducks, covering his head and darting around the same corner Dixie took. Jack follows him, panting, but apparently not shot. 

“Friends of yours?” Mac gasps out. 

“Yeah, Duke didn't really have friends,” Jack mutters. “You know what I'm saying?” He’s straightened up now, and is running a little more normally. 

They reach the street, and Mac glances back and forth at the crowd.  _ Where did she go? _ There’s a streetcar passing, and through the window Mac sees a blur of red on the other side of the street.  _ There. _ “Jack, she’s over there!” 

He can hear the footsteps behind them, hopefully these goons won’t open fire on a crowded street but he has to stop them just to be sure.  _ No one else is gonna get hurt because of us. I won’t let that happen.  _ “Jack. Go get Dixie. I got these guys.”

“All right.” Jack runs off, and Mac glances around him.  _ Those streetcar wires are carrying a pretty high electric charge. If I can just get them to touch… _ There’s a couple pieces of chain coiled beside a loading dock fronting onto the alley he’s in. He ducks a couple ricoheting shots and dives for the chain, grabbing it and spinning it over his head before tossing it at the cables. Sparks fly everywhere, and everyone who wasn’t already running away from the gunshots is hurrying to escape now. 

Mac takes advantage of the disoriented confusion as the men chasing him dodge the wildly flying sparks, swiping at their faces and cursing in a language Mac doesn’t recognize.  _ I couldn’t take all three normally, but this gives me a decent chance.  _ He’s dealt with worse odds as a vigilante. The trick has always been to create some kind of diversion, then deal with whoever he’s trying to take down as efficiently as possible. He lands a solid punch on the first guy’s jaw, then grabs the gun out of his hand and uses it to knock out the second guy.

The third man was a little further behind him than the others and managed to avoid the worst of the blinding sparks. Mac dodges a scarily hard blow from the guy’s gun, throwing himself to the ground and grabbing a handful of grime from the edge of the alley when he stands up again. He flings it into the man’s face and then lands a gut punch that sends the man stumbling backward, into the guy Mac clocked in the jaw first, who’s just starting to get up. The goon he punched in the jaw grabs his partner, then pulls him away and they vanish into the crowd. 

_ I can try to follow them or go after Jack. _ Mac quickly ties the hands of the guy he did knock out and drags him into the alley behind a dumpster, then runs across the street. “Hey, Matty, left you a little present on the alley off Royal.”

“How sweet, and it’s not even my birthday.” Matty says. “Where’s Jack?”

“Still chasing his wife I guess. I’m on my way to help him right now.” Mac takes the street he last saw them both on. “Where is he now?” His ankle is starting to really throb, all this running isn’t doing it any favors.  _ Dr. Grey is going to kill me. _

“Take a left, Mac,” Riley says. “Okay, now right. He should be right in front of you.” His ankle feels like it’s about to give out any second, and he leans against the wall beside him, gasping. Then he hears car tires squeal. 

Mac looks up, just in time to see a black car screech across the road, and three men jump out. Jack knocks one back, but the second grabs Dixie, despite the fact that she starts kicking and flailing, clawing at the man’s arms with her nails and screaming. 

“Get your hands off my damn wife!” He can hear Jack shouting, and that galvanizes him into action.  _ If I can just... _ and then a fist connects with Jack’s face, and he goes down hard. 

People are running from the fight now, and Mac tries desperately to push his way through them. Someone’s foot slams against his bad ankle and he bites back a scream, wanting to curl in over the pain and protect himself. He blinks, and through the haze of pained tears he can see the men loading Jack and Dixie into the trunk of their car.  _ No, no, no, no! _ He forces himself to keep going, biting his lip at the searing pain shooting up his leg now, but it’s too late. The car disappears in a swirl of exhaust fumes and burnt rubber. He stumbles up, panting, eyes locked on the blood and the broken comm on the sidewalk.  _ And I wrecked Jack’s phone, so we can’t track him with that either.  _ He swallows hard. 

Mac leans against a wall, then feels himself sliding down it. He’s too exhausted and frustrated and scared to care.  _ They have Jack. They have Jack and I couldn’t stop them and if anything happens it’s my fault. _ He takes a deep shaky breath and feels Jack’s dog tags slide against his chest.  _ Not my fault. It’s not. I did everything I could.  _

He takes another breath and then taps his comms. “Matty we have a problem. Someone just stole a lot more than Duke's identity.”

* * *

Jack blinks awake to the smell of musty carpet and the feeling of a body beside him.  _ Oh man. _ It’s hard to see in the dark, but he recognizes the faint perfume Dixie was wearing at the jazz club.

_ Right. Chased her down the street, caught her, then these guys caught both of us. _ His cheek aches from the punch.  _ One hit knockout, not bad. _ Although he thinks the way the back of his head slammed the concrete sidewalk might have had something to do with that too. 

His left ear feels empty, and not just in the way that it is when no one is talking through comms. There’s a physical emptiness as well, and he already knows why.  _ They must have knocked my comm out when they hit me. Damn it. _ Looks like Jack’s going to have to get out of this one without backup. 

“Morning, sunshine,” Dixie mumbles softly.  _ Must have noticed my breathing change. _

“Morning. How long was I out?” 

“Hmm, thirty minutes, give or take.”

Jack sighs, then starts levering himself up. His skull explodes in pain and he leans back, gasping. “No use,” Dixie says. “They cut the emergency release, and the taillights have been covered from the inside. We're good and stuck.” She sighs. “So, hubby, you want to tell me who these guys are?”  _ I wish I knew.  _

“Well, it's hard to say, really. Could be the 39ers. Could be the Bayou Mafia. Could be the two guys I hunted down for the Bayou Mafia. It's dealer's choice, really.” He shrugs, or tries to, it’s hard with his hands tied behind his back. 

“Seriously, who are you?” Dixie hisses. 

“It..it's complicated. You know, maybe you should do a tad more research before you go pretending to be somebody's wife next time, okay?”

“Look, I actually don't care who you are, or what's going on here.”

“That's not very nice.” Jack is feeling the snark coming on full force, Mac said once that Jack’s sarcasm had a direct correlation to the extent of his injury, whatever that means in math speak. Something about the more injured he is the more he mouths off, he thinks.  _ Which is one hundred percent true. _

Dixie’s voice is suspiciously shaky, and despite the fact that Jack can’t see a thing in here he thinks she’s probably getting a little teary.  _ She’s an identity thief. Just a white collar criminal who doesn’t get mixed up in the down and dirty side of things.  _ This whole situation is out of her depth. “I just don't want to get in the middle of this, okay? All right? So if this is about the identities I stole, I'm sorry. I've been conning this government IT contractor for weeks, planning to drain his 401k. But when I got access to his computer, I found his bank accounts, credit cards, social security numbers. I mean, I thought I hit the jackpot. I figured y'all were just seventeen people in some government database, not seventeen people the government made up.”

“Okay, look. I can’t tell you what’s going on. But I can tell you that these guys are not the first to try and kill me, and they’re not even the best at it. I’m gonna get us both out of this. And then, I mean, you’re probably gonna spend the next twenty years in prison, but seeing as red is your color, orange is probably gonna look pretty good…”

“Seriously?” Dixie says, and her laugh is a little breathless and hysterical, but it is a laugh. And then Jack hears the engine stop and footsteps coming around to the trunk. He closes his eyes.  _ Might as well get them underestimating me. _

* * *

Mac holds a bag of ice cubes to his ankle, sitting on a kitchen chair in Dixie’s house, while Matty paces back and forth, looking between him and the man tied up to another chair in the middle of the living room. 

“Who is that guy?”

“No clue. But someone sent him and eight others to grab Jack and our fake Mrs. Jacoby. I knocked him out, and his two pals left him behind when they bolted.” Mac can see the bruise forming on the side of the man’s forehead. His own hand aches from punching the other guy, but he’s pretty sure nothing is seriously wrong.  _ Jack’s been working on teaching me how to throw a proper punch and not break my hand, when we get him back I’m gonna tell him it’s paying off. _

“And from what I've heard about Duke, I think it's a safe bet that whoever sent these guys is not a friend. Which means we have yet another problem. Because it's only a matter of time before Duke's better half realizes she's sitting on one hell of a bargaining chip.”

“Seventeen freshly stolen CIA identities could fetch millions on the black market,” Mac mumbles. “And depending on who those guys are, they might consider a trade.” 

“Yes. So first things first: let's I.D. sleeping beauty here.” Matty snaps a picture of the man’s face. “Riley?”

“On it.” Mac can hear Riley tapping away. He swallows. His ear feels empty without Jack either on comms or here in person. He can tell Riley’s worried too, she’s talking in short clipped sentences and her voice sounds carefully poised. 

He gasps when Matty touches his ankle. “How’s the leg, Blondie?”

“Still attached,” he mumbles, then blinks, because it sounds too much like something Jack would say. “Just sore. I’ll be okay in a few...hours.” He probably shouldn’t lie to her. 

“If you need to sit this one out…”

“I can’t. Jack is out there and he needs all of us looking for him.” 

Matty nods, and Mac can see the traces of worry on her face. “But the second it’s too much for you, you need to promise me you’ll stop. You can’t help Jack if you snap that ankle again or someone catches you because you can’t run away.” He bites his lip and nods. 

“Guys, we have a problem,” Riley says. “First, there's too many hits, now there's too few. Sorry, guys, all I can tell you is this guy doesn't have a criminal record  _ or _ a driver's license.”

“Then I guess we need to do this the old-fashioned way,” Matty says. “Mac, would you like to rouse our guest?”

“My pleasure.” Mac stands up, wincing, then reaches for the cupboard doors. 

“What are you doing?”

“I was gonna go make some smelling salts.” 

“Oh, never mind, Goldilocks. I'll just do it.” Matty walks purposefully out into the living room and then smacks the man’s cheek. He blinks drowsily at her. “Hey, sleepyhead. How you feeling?” her voice hardens. “Where did you take Duke Jacoby?” 

Bozer’s voice cuts in over comms. “Hey, Matty. Sorry to interrupt, but at spy school, we learned an interrogation technique for situations like this. You start by going into his mental space, and then you want to…” 

Matty rolls her eyes. “Bozer. You do realize that I wrote that entire curriculum, right?” She leans in, then stomps hard on the man’s foot. He groans, then lets out a string of curses in what Mac assumes was the same language he heard these guys using earlier. “That's Albanian, and so is he. Riley, pull up everything about the Albanian mob in Duke's file. Oh, and Bozer, here's a tip: whenever you're in pain, you always revert to your mother tongue. You might want to write that down.” 

Riley speaks up. “Well, I see a long list of dirtballs who despise Duke, but nothing about any Albanians. So how do we find Jack?”

Mac leans in toward Matty, lowering his voice. “He may not be able to tell us where Jack is, but he might be able to show us.”

* * *

Jack rolls his eyes when someone steps out of the dark corner of the warehouse toward where he and Dixie are now tied to chairs.  _ Why do these two bit mobsters always go for the dramatics? This isn’t  _ The Godfather _. _ “Little Raymond?”

The man practically growls, and Jack can hear his teeth grinding. “It's just Raymond now.”

“Oh, okay. You know, the last time I saw you, your pops had you dragging Lake Pontchatoony, Pontchatong, Punxsutawney, whatever. You remember that? When you lost that huge drug shipment?” Jack thinks it’s instinct at this point to rile up the guys holding him captive, keep their attention on him. And even thought the blonde beside him isn’t the one he’s usually trying to protect, he still doesn’t want to see Dixie get hurt if he can help it. 

“No. What I remember is you losing the shipment and blaming me.” Ray’s voice is cold and angry. 

“Yeah, well, who can be sure about something like that after this long?”

Ray leans in closer, so close that Jack can smell the sweat that’s rolling off the man because he’s wearing a suit in freaking New Orleans, and the garlicky smell that’s always followed this guy around. _Said he ate it for his health._ _I guess you don’t get sick too often when people want to stay ten feet away from you at all times._ “I can. I remember that entire June perfectly. You want to know why? Cause that was the month you double-crossed us. Pops went down for racketeering. Got 60 years in the can. And you skipped town.”

Jack raises an eyebrow. “Hey, hey. What's with the attitude, ‘Just Ray’? Looks like you're running things just fine now. You know, you should probably be thanking me for your promotion. You're welcome.” The man’s fist slams into his already bruised cheek and sets off a wave of fireworks in his skull. He spits out a mouthful of blood and takes a deep breath. “You're welcome.” 

Ray pulls out a gun from his belt and cocks it. “I've dreamt of killing you for a long time, Jacoby. Don't worry. It'll be quick.” He turns his gun from Jack to Dixie. “For the missus. Not so much for you.”

“No-no-no, wait, wait, wait a minute now. She has nothing to do with this. She's not even my real wife.”

“It's true. You got to believe him.”

“You think I'm married?” Jack asks, trying to make it as convincing as possible. “A player like the one and  _ only _ Duke Jacoby settling down? Putting a ring on it?” 

“I've never seen him before today,” Dixie insists, and her voice is shuddering, frantic. 

“If I'm being honest, I don't really care who you are.” 

Jack chokes out the first thing that comes to mind. “I'll give you the half million.”

“What?” 

“Yeah, the five hundred g’s. Five hundred grand I stole from your old man before I split. I mean, y-you are family. Technically, it's yours. I'll just give it to you, square everything up, how’s that sound?”

“What five hundred thousand? What are you talking about?” 

“Why do you think I would come back to this armpit? I  _ hate _ New Orleans,” Jack groans. “Do you know how many people want to kill me here? Huh?” He shrugs. “I'd need a good reason. And I got five hundred and thirty  _ thousand _ good ones, you know what I'm saying?” 

“But, baby, we were gonna use that money to build a house…” Apparently  _ now _ Dixie wants to play up the wife angle.  _ Sweetheart, just keep your mouth shut, I got this, don’t antagonize him. That’s my job. _

“Not right now, Dixie Cup.”

“With a view of the bayou.”  _ Does  _ not _ know when to stop. _ Jack sighs. At least she’s selling the idea that he really does have it. 

“Sugar Pie, Sugar Pie. We will work this out.” 

“Should of known this was gonna happen. Mama warned me from the start you were no good at follow-through.”

“Okay, that’s just insulting, and besides, your momma loved me!” 

Ray waves his gun in Jack’s face. “Shut up, the both of you. You really have five hundred thousand of my money?” 

“Yep. Sure do.” Jack’s slowly but surely working his hands free, he just has to stall for time. “If you remember that summer so well, then you probably remember me working with your dad on that tourist scam hustle…” 

* * *

Matty watches curiously while Mac starts dumping things into the kitchen sink.  _ Sorry, Jack, it’s probably gonna corrode this. So much for keeping the mortgaged place intact.  _ “Maybe now would be a good time for you to let me in on what you're doing, Bill Nye?”  _ At least it’s better than Jack calling me Sid the Science Kid that one time. _

“I'm coating the cuffs in a mixture of selenium powder, cadmium oxide, and good old muriatic acid. When blended together, they cause a reaction that emits a light at a wavelength that can only be seen by infrared cameras.”  _ Thanks, Mr. Ericson and sixth grade science. _

“Like, say, the IR camera in one of our keyhole satellites?” 

“Exactly.” Mac dips the cuffs in the mixture with a pair of tongs, then lays them on a towel to dry. “So, now, all we got to do is slap these cuffs on our Albanian friend over there, let him think that he's escaped, and then he's either gonna run to the nearest airport, or straight back to his boss, who's holding Jack and Dixie.” He washes his hands quickly in the tap, the solution splashed onto his skin a little and it’s not exactly pleasant.  _ Not incredibly caustic but still not something I want on me. _

“Okay. It's a long shot. But fifty-fifty odds are a hell of a lot better than nothing.” Matty glances at the handcuffs, then at Mac. 

“Got to make this look convincing, so step one is letting him know we're gonna be moving him to a more secure location.” Matty nods, and then both of them turn as there’s a muffled grunting and thud from the next room. 

“Sounds like your friend just skipped step one,” Matty observes wryly. Mac grabs the cuffs and runs. 

The Albanian man is still limping from Matty’s stomping, but he’s almost to the door. Mac grabs him by the shoulder and struggles to get a good enough grasp of his arm to get the cuffs on. A blow to his stomach makes him gasp and bend over, panting, but the man’s arm is flailing, trying to hit him again, and Mac grabs hold of his wrist, slamming the cuffs down and listening to them click into place.  _ I really hate that sound.  _

Unfortunately, he’s not as focused on fighting, which is giving the Albanian an advantage. The man grabs him the the shoulder and flings him through the large glass window that looks out onto the porch, before throwing the front door open and bolting. 

Mac winces. On top of his ankle aching, now he’s covered in glass cuts, and he thinks he can feel a small shard that’s stabbed into his leg. He rolls sideways a little, looking up to see Matty watching him through the smashed window.  

“Did you get the cuffs on him?” 

“Barely.” He pants, then watches Matty’s worried gaze slide over him. There’s probably blood. “I’m okay.”

“ _ Right. _ ” Matty’s sarcasm is abundantly clear. “Riley, you're up. Get us an eye in the sky.” Mac scrambles to his feet, wincing and stifling a gasp of pain.  _ This better work. _

* * *

Jack’s so focused on working the ties off his hands that Dixie’s whisper startles him as much as a gunshot. “You know when that lunatic realizes you didn't actually steal his money, he's gonna kill us both.”

“Don't worry. I'm working on getting my hands free. The trick's gonna be to get close enough to one of these goons to lift a weapon.”

“I might be able to help with that,” Dixie says, glancing across the room to where their two guards, who look like the stereotypical more-muscle-than-brains type, are talking. 

“Yeah, how's that?” 

“Mr. Scowly over there's been patting his pockets for an hour. He wants a cigarette, but he's out. If I tell him I have a pack on me and offer one in exchange for a light…

“He'll close the distance himself. Very clever.” It reminds him a bit of Cage.  _ What is it with smart people who have great instincts who really like to play for the other side of the law? _ Maybe something about being able to understand people so well means having to skate a little too close to your own inner demons. 

“Returning shallow compliments, are we?”

“You know, you could've been anything. How'd you wind up doing something like this?”

Dixie shakes her head, glaring at him. “You'd rather play "get to know you" than "get the hell out of here"?”

"Still working on getting my hands free, sweetheart. Thought we could do both." Jack shrugs. "Got nothin' else to do, ya know?"

Dixie sighs, staring. straight ahead instead of looking at Jack. She bites her lip and frowns. “I tried the legit life. But to be honest, I like life on this side of the law." Jack sort of knows what she means. It sounds a little like Mac, really. They're both loose cannons, people who don't fit into the norm of society, do things their own way. Mac's lucky he has a job that allows him to be what he is legitimately now. "And I love my work.”

“Still love it when Mr Ray of Sunshine wants to feed us both the the ‘gators?” 

“It’s hardly the first time someone’s wanted to do that.” She sighs. “It is the first time I’ve been threatened at point blank range.” She chuckles nervously. 

“Sorry about that.”

“Well, it’s my fault for deciding to become the wife of a notorious gun runner, mob enforcer, and drug smuggler.” She shrugs. “You were right, I should have been more careful.”

He shrugs. “Well, hopefully you’ll have the chance to learn from your mistakes. I almost got my hands free. You about ready for that smoke?”

The door slams open, and Jack sighs. Ray’s back. And he doesn’t look happy.  _ Guess Mr. Scowly isn’t gonna get his fake smokes after all.  _

Ray leans in toward Jack, scowling. “So, I called some associates. And guess what? Not a single person can confirm your story about the five hundred grand.” Jack shrugs. “But the more people I spoke to, the more it became clear you were right about one thing: there are a lot of folks in New Orleans who hate you. And so, I made a few more calls and found a mutual acquaintance who said you left him and his brother for dead years ago. In a swamp?”  _ Oh, shoot. I knew that was gonna come back to bite me. _

“Oh, yeah, well, I wanted to kill those two ding-dongs on the boat. It was just more convenient to throw them overboard. And a lot nicer, if you think about it.”

“Well, that's not how they see it. Turns out these brothers dislike you so much, Duke, they're willing to pay me a cool million for the honor of killing you themselves.” Ray nods to his muscle goons, who drag Jack up and out of the chair. When they lift him upright and check the ties on his hands, one of them punches him in the stomach while the other one adds a fresh set of zip ties to his wrists. 

He glances at Dixie as he’s dragged out the door. “It's been a real pleasure being your husband.”

* * *

Riley really, really hates being in the War Room when things go wrong.  _ How do Patty and Matty survive?  _ She feels so helpless. Jack is in the hands of some unknown group of bad guys and they’re relying on an Albanian hired muscle to lead them to him.

Bozer nods at the screen. “Okay, Mac's infrared handcuffs are doing the trick. Our Albanian friend just turned right on Tulane Avenue.”

Riley’s too nervous to see the good side of things. She’s focused on the quickly decreasing light on the scan. “But Mac was right about the chemical tags wearing off. Color's fading fast. I don't think we're gonna be able to track him much longer.”

Matty sounds as stressed as Riley. “This guy's our best hope at finding Jack. I need you to pinpoint his position now.” Riley pulls up the exact location...and then the light goes out altogether.  _ No no no. _

“Well, either Riley just jinxed us and the tag wore off, or he just ran into a building on Pierce Street.” 

Riley nods. “It’s all we have. Matty, I’m sending you coordinates now.” She sighs, resting her head in her hands as soon as the message sends.

“Riley?” Bozer asks, sitting down beside her. “Are you okay?”

She can’t do this anymore. Can’t pretend to be okay while her little family falls apart. “No. Bozer, I’m not.” She slams a fist onto the coffee table so hard her rig wobbles and the bowl of paperclips there rattles. “I am stuck here while Jack could be being tortured, maybe already dead.” It’s so much worse than Budapest and Lemaire.

Bozer rests a hand on her shoulder. “It’s going to be okay. Jack’s tough. He’s gonna come home and it’s all going to be fine.” He pulls her close. 

And that’s when Riley loses it.  _ He’s never going to be any less my friend because he loves Leanna. Never. He still cares about me just as much as he did before.  _ “Bozer, I’m so sorry,” She whispers. 

“What are you sorry for?” He asks. She sighs, trying to get her shaky breaths under control.  _ It’s just too much. Too much all at once.  _

“Not trusting you.”

Bozer frowns. “Is this about the encrypted messages thing? I don’t want to get you in trouble....”

“No. Well, yes. Well, sort of. But…” She feels like an idiot even saying this.  _ I sound needy. I sound like he dumped me for her. That’s not what happened.  _ “It’s just, what you said earlier, about Leanna being special...it just...it hurt, Bozer.” She’s surprised at how unselfconscious she feels admitting that to him. “I don’t know, it’s my childhood and Elwood talking, but I...felt like I was being replaced.” 

“I’m sorry.” Bozer slides off the chair and crouches so he’s looking her in the eyes. “You’d think after living with Mac all these years I’d have developed a better brain-mouth filter about stuff like that.” He chuckles humorlessly. “I didn’t even think…”

“It’s not on you. You were scared and I put you on the spot.” She shrugs. “All I wanted to say was, I’m sorry for running out on you, for being a little jealous.”

“Jealous?” He raises an eyebrow. 

“Not romantically. Just...feeling like things were going to change. Like maybe you’d start pushing the rest of us aside, now that you finally found your perfect girl.”

“I’m never gonna do that. I’ve got a big enough heart for all you guys and Leanna too, okay?” Bozer smiles. “I’m still going to be here. As long as you need me.” He bites his lip. “And I really am sorry, for what it’s worth, for making it sound like you weren’t special to me.”

It means more than Riley wants to admit to hear that.  _ It’s so hard for me to believe people won’t replace me.  _ She’s been over this ground already with Jack too, and it feels like with every person who reminds her that they love her, a few more of those shattered pieces of her heart glue themselves back together.

“Okay, we’re in position for the breaching,” someone says, and Riley jumps. She forgot she left the mission channel live.  _ Hopefully I only left it as incoming and they didn’t all hear me totally fall apart and bare my insecurities to the world.  _

“Okay, on my signal,” Matty says. And then there’s a chaos of Albanian shouting, explosions, and yelling. 

“Drop your weapons! Hands in the air! Get down on your knees! Get him up, now!” Riley’s filtering through the normal chaos of a raid, waiting for Jack to complain about them blinding him with the flashbangs or say something snarky about it taking them long enough. But his voice is disturbingly absent.  _ Maybe he’s unconscious. _ She refuses to let herself assume worse. 

“I sincerely hope y'all are friends with my husband.” The strong southern accent must belong to Dixie. 

“Where is he?”  _ It’s probably a good thing Matty’s there, not me.  _

“I don't know. But I know somebody's paying a million dollars to kill him. And I might be able to help you figure out who. So how about we make a deal?” Riley absolutely despises this kind of blackmail. But she wants to get Jack back more. She stands up and paces while Matty talks, because listening to Dixie use Jack’s life as a bargaining chip makes her want to reach through the screens and punch the woman. 

Finally, Matty returns to updating them directly. “Okay, according to Dixie, the Albanians are selling Jack to a couple of brothers he left in a swamp. Let's hope Duke put something about them in the files.”

“Bet Jack never thought his life would hinge on his ability to fill out paperwork,” Bozer says. Riley smiles, just a tiny bit. 

She cross references the information and she’s hit with a wave of utter relief when it returns a match. Things are finally starting to go their way. “Matty, I think we got a hit. Duke was transporting two Brazilian smugglers through the bayou at night, when, quote, "Things went kind of sideways, due to nobody's fault in particular, and I wound up tossing 'em both in the drink”.” Bozer grins at her Jack imitation.

“Do these smugglers have a name?” 

“Matheus and Gustavo Barbosa. They blew into New Orleans after the hurricane and put down roots.” Riley continues searching. “It looks like they've expanded from smuggling to real estate. They're buying up properties all over the city Vacant lots, abandoned houses, a couple of car washes, a cemetery.”

Mac speaks up, for the first time, and Riley can tell that if she’s afraid for Jack, her little brother is downright terrified. “A cemetery? If I was gonna kill someone and hide the evidence, that would be the best place.” 

“Let’s go get Jack back,” Matty says crisply. And then comms go dead and Riley is left in the War Room, a million miles away and utterly unable to do one thing to help save Jack. She turns to Bozer. 

“Hey, I think now might be a really good time for one of those donuts you kind of promised me this morning. And coffee. A lot of coffee.” He smiles and squeezes her shoulder before he walks out, and she takes a deep breath.  _ We’re all going to be okay. We have to be. _

* * *

CEMETERIES ARE ALWAYS EERIER AT NIGHT

AND THAT’S NOT COUNTING THE LOCAL GHOST STORIES

Mac tries not to literally jump at shadows as he wanders between headstones, monuments, and a few miniature mausoleums. Clouds keep skimming across the moon, and a thick fog is swirling in shredded clumps around everything.  _ I can see why people have ghost stories down here.  _ He’s tripped over low headstones three times already, which is definitely not helping his bad ankle, even though he stopped at a drugstore and at least got an wrap for it. 

“Okay, Mac, SWAT's in place, and they're not gonna move until I give them the green light. Any signs of the Albanians or Brazilians?”

“No. Everyone is resting peacefully on my end. But this place is huge, and we still don't know if this is where the deal is going down for sure.” He’s been doubting himself ever since he told the team this was their best bet.  _ If I’m wrong, I just killed Jack. I can’t afford to have been wrong. _ But he’s absolutely terrified that he was.  _ What if they want to do to Jack what he did to them as poetic justice?  _ What if right now Jack’s floating in the swamps, incapacitated, about to die by becoming alligator food? Mac shivers at the thought. 

“It’s all we have to go on.” Matty sighs. 

Mac continues pacing, trying very very hard not to have a panic attack. Jack isn’t here to snap him out of it. He has to be okay,  _ Jack has to be okay, I have to be okay… _ The thoughts are all swirling around and it’s getting harder to breathe. 

And then headlights cut through the misty darkness. He recognizes the old black Cadillac that he watched Jack get thrown in the back of, and his breathing evens out, but just as quickly begins to stutter again. They’re leaving, not coming. They already made the exchange. “Matty, I got eyes on the Albanians. Headed for the south exit.” He hurries toward the gates as fast as his leg will let him limp.

When he gets there, the sirens are already screaming, and he can hear shouting as the SWAT team arrests the car full of people. 

“Don't move! - Put your hands on the wheel! Where I can see 'em!” Mac swallows down the spike of fear that just got added to his already frazzled mind and churning stomach. The memory of the raid on his house at Christmas is all too fresh. 

He gets there just as one of the men opens the trunk, then turns to Matty, shaking his head. “He’s not in the vehicle.”

“Where is he?” Matty shouts at a heavyset balding guy who’s probably the leader, judging by the suit he’s wearing. The man just frowns. “Duke. Where's Duke?” 

“Don't know anyone by that name.” Matty cocks her head, and then she’s twisting the man’s arm behind him, forcing him to his knees with a shout of pain. The scariest thing about it all is that her face still hasn’t changed expression into the kind of snarling anger Jack’s has when he does something similar. Matty still looks as in control as ever. 

“Where did the Barbosas take him?”

Riley’s voice comes through comms. “Uh, guys, there's a crazy heat plume that just popped up on the sat feed. It's in the southwest corner of the cemetery.”

“Crematorium.” Mac shudders. They’re going to burn the body. Or maybe burn Jack alive. And given how much these guys want Duke Jacoby to suffer, it’s probably the latter. He jumps into the Cadillac and throws it into reverse, swinging into a small side path and turning around before driving back the way the men came from.

Matty’s yelling at him through the comms. “Mac, what are you doing? SWAT's mobilizing an assault now.”

“Jack can't wait, Matty. Incinerator's already burning.” The headlights are barely making a difference through the fog, and he’s trying to focus on following the directions Riley’s giving him. 

He can hear Matty yelling at the SWAT team before she says anything to him again. “Follow his lead! Go, go, go!” Then her voice gets more focused again. “Mac, we have no idea how many hostiles are in that building. You have a plan to deal with that?”

“I'll worry about that once I shut off the gas.”

“And how do you plan to do that?”

“After Katrina, all gas lines in New Orleans were retrofitted with emergency shutoff valves in case of another disaster.” Mac takes a shaky breath. “Well, I’m about to  _ be _ that disaster.”  _ Jack would have laughed and said I’ve been a disaster since he’s known me. He also would have told me to put the seatbelt on because ‘you’re gonna kill yourself with this stupid stunt, man’.  _ He pulls the strap across his chest and clicks it into place. 

He can see the crematorium up ahead now, and he takes a deep breath and then drives the car as fast as possible toward the building. The impact from the car feels like an earthquake. It’s almost as bad as being in an explosion; his whole body aches instantaneously, and for a second everything goes explodes in flickers of light and then goes black. 

Mac gasps in a struggling breath. It feels like every molecule of air has been forced out of his lungs. Everything is ringing. Mac shakes his head, but that doesn’t help, it makes everything worse. He can barely see straight and his chest hurts from the seatbelt. He has to get that off, or he can’t get out of the car. He manages to unbuckle it, but then the door seems to be opening of its own accord.  _ That’s wrong, that shouldn’t happen…  _

Hands are on his shoulders, dragging him out. He tries to struggle but the most he can manage is weakly slapping at the people pulling on him. They throw him to the ground and he looks up to see a gun in his face.  _ If they shoot me at least maybe Jack… _

There’s a crack of a gunshot and Mac flinches, but then the gun is out of his face and the man who was holding it is falling to the ground. Mac barely manages to roll out of the way so the guy doesn’t fall right on top of him. 

His hearing is starting to return, and he can tell the SWAT team is behind, yelling and securing the rest of the men who came out. Mac struggles to his feet, chest aching, but only one thought driving him forward.  _ I have to get to Jack. _

He doesn’t know what he’ll do if there are any more men inside. What he’ll do if Jack is already dead. Right now, he has to believe Jack is alive and he can save him. Because if he doesn’t he’s going to crumble. 

He stumbles into the incinerator room, which is empty and that’s both reassuring and terrifying, and then he hears it. Above the roar of the flames from the incinerator, he can hear Jack’s voice. “Mac, buddy, I need you!”

“Jack!”  _ He’s alive. _ “I’m here, hang on!” Jack must be in the coffin that’s already inside the flames. Mac slams the stop button to prevent the rollers from moving it further in, but there’s no reverse for the conveyor and the whole coffin is on fire now.  _ How do I get him out? _

“Get me outta here Mac!” There’s a genuine panic to Jack’s voice that Mac has only heard a few times since he’s worked with the man. He heard it in that van when Jack stepped on the Ghost’s bomb, in the Bermuda Triangle when Harper Hayes had her gun on Jack and Jack had his back against the wall. This is what Jack sounds like when he’s sure he’s about to die. 

“I will!” He has to hurry, because if Jack starts to really panic and breathes in even more of that smoky air he could asphyxiate…Mac turns frantically in a circle,  _ Jack calls it my dog chasing the tail move, _ trying to see what’s in here he can use. And then Jack shouts again. 

“Mac!”

He can’t wait any longer. He has to get Jack out  _ now. _ There’s no time for anything else. He reaches into the flames, grabbing the sides of the coffin. It’s heavy and awkward but Mac is running on pure adrenaline now and the burning box begins to move. He moves his hands forward and pulls again, and now it’s sliding on the rollers, it’s almost free…

He leans forward and shoves it as hard as he can and the coffin tips to the other side and smashes open. Jack tumbles out, rolling on the floor in amongst the burning slats of wood, and Mac scrambles over the conveyor and pulls Jack to his feet, slapping desperately at the flames licking up the side of the man’s arm, and then pulls out his knife and cuts through the rope holding Jack’s wrists behind his back. 

“You okay?” He gasps out as Jack leans over, coughing from the smoke.

“I don't know, man. I was just on fire. You tell me.” Jack coughs again, sucking in lungfuls of the slightly fresher air.  _ We should get outside, out of the smoke. He’s inhaled enough already.  _

“You look okay to me.”

“Thanks, man.” Jack reaches up to give Mac a fist bump, and Mac returns it unthinkingly. And then his hand flares up with a terrible burning pain and he crumples against the conveyor, gasping, vision flickering on the edges of blacking out again.

“Mac, buddy, are you alright?” Jack asks, and Mac looks down at his reddened hands and shakes his head.  _ No, no, I’m not _ . 

* * *

SOMEWHERE...IN A COFFIN

USUALLY WHEN JACK WAKES UP HE’S NOT IN ONE ANYMORE

Jack doesn’t think there are too many things in the world more disconcerting than waking up in a pine box to hear people literally driving nails into your coffin. 

“Hey, wait a minute, fellas! We can work something out, can't we?!” The nail gun continues firing and Jack hopes they don’t decide to put a few through him for good measure. “Come on!”

He’s really not a fan of the idea of being buried alive.  _ Yes, Mac, I’ve had dreams about it. And yes. I died. _ It’s a recurring nightmare, and even though this is a pine box instead of the bizarre glass one that haunts his dreams, it’s far too close for comfort. 

When he hears the whoosh of flames and smells smoke, he realizes it’s even worse.  _ Not buried alive. Burned alive. _ There’s a whirr of machinery and then the coffin starts inching forward. Jack thinks briefly about rocking it, trying to knock it off the conveyor, but he’s pretty sure the Brazilians are going to want to wait around and watch the show, and if he tries anything they’ll probably shoot him.  _ And I doubt it would be fatal. _ They’re not going to give him the mercy of a quick death. 

“Well, Duke, I kind of always thought you'd get me killed one day. I just didn't think it'd be today.” His one chance is if his team somehow manages to track him down.  _ Come on, Mac, use your big brain and figure it out. _

It’s getting hard to breathe now.  _ What is it Mac always says about fires? Most people don’t die from burns, they die from breathing in the smoke? _ Not that there’s much Jack can do about any of it at this point. His hands are tied, literally. 

“Hey Big Man, if you’re listening right now, I need that crazy kid.”  _ And he needs me. Don’t you dare let me die on him. It’d kill him. _ The way the kid reacted to losing Zoe, a person he barely even knew...Jack’s more terrified than ever that if he dies the kid will kill himself.  _ I wanted to believe he would never, but what I saw that night… _ “Mac, buddy, I need you now. I need you more than ever, kid. Mac!” 

And then, and Jack will swear to his dying day it’s a miracle, he hears Mac’s voice over the roar of the flames. “Jack! I’m here!” 

There’s a whoosh as the flames go out, but Jack can still hear the soft crackling as the pine box continues to burn. “Get me out of here, Mac!” Jack coughs, lungs filling with smoke. His eyes are burning and he squeezes them shut.  _ These tears are only from the smoke, right? _

Then the whole coffin starts to rock, sliding backward, then sideways. Jack barely has time to brace himself before it topples to the floor, spilling him out onto the ground. And then Mac is beside him, hands slapping at the flames that are running up the shoulder of Jack’s coat. 

“You okay?” Mac asks, and his voice is shaky. 

“I don't know, man. I was just on fire. You tell me.” Jack’s greedily gasping in the clearer air. Even though there’s still a smell of smoke on everything, he doesn’t care. He’s not currently dying. 

“You look okay to me.”

“Thanks, man.” Jack leans over for a fist bump, and Mac returns it with a weak, relieved chuckle. And then the kid  _ screams _ , hoarse and choked, curling his body protectively over his hands and gasping. 

“Mac, buddy, are you alright?” Mac just shakes his head. He’s curled in around his hands so much Jack can’t see what’s wrong.  _ What did he...no, no, he freaking didn’t. _ But Jack already knows he did.  _ Mac reached into that fire with his bare hands and dragged me out. _ “Let me, see, kiddo.”

Mac swallows hard, then holds out his hands, his eyes shimmering with tears he’s trying to choke back. “Mac…” Jack flinches. The kid’s hands are a  _ mess _ . “What did you do to yourself?” 

“H-had to get you out,” Mac gasps.

“Aw kid. Come on, let’s get you to the medics, okay?” Jack helps Mac to his feet and the two of them stumble out of the building. Matty’s waiting, and when she sees them, her smile appears, then just as quickly fades as she takes in Mac’s hunched posture and shaky breaths. 

“What happened?” 

“Kid stuck his hands in a furnace to get me out,” Jack mumbles. “He needs a doctor, Matty.” And then he doubles over, coughing so hard Pops would say he was about to hack up a lung. 

“And so do you.” Matty ushers them both over to a waiting ambulance.

Jack protests at being told to lie down inside the vehicle with an oxygen mask, but Matty’s glare has him cooperating, finally. He hates not being able to see what they’re doing with the kid. Every once in a while he can hear the voices from where the medics are helping Mac, and a few times he hears soft, muffled gasps of pain. Jack almost jumps up from the stretcher and shoves the paramedic watching him away to get to his kid then, but he doesn’t think it’s wise to test the patience of the woman who reminds him plenty of that Mama Colton they ran into last year in Georgia. She’s got the same no-nonsense attitude, coupled with the muscle definition of a champion weightlifter. Jack has no intention of testing her patience and adding a concussion to his symptom list.

He will have to add some burns of his own. His feet have some first degree on the soles, but it’s hardly worse than what he’d get running around barefoot in the summer in Texas sand. He’ll manage. 

When the paramedic, Belle, is satisfied with his O2 readings and finally allows him to take off the mask, Jack joins Mac where he’s sitting on the back bumper of the ambulance, hands completely covered in white gauze mitts. 

“Oh kid.” Jack glances from the bandaged hands to Mac’s face. “What did you do?”

Mac nods toward the smashed car that’s now visible in the growing daylight. “Drove that Cadillac through the building, and then I pulled you out with my bare hands.”  _ That’s what I thought, you idiot genius. You’re lucky you’re not in a whiplash brace too.  _

“What, did you run out of paper clips and bubble gum or something?” 

“Yeah. Something like that.”

Matty walks up, shaking her head at them. “Cute mittens, Blondie.”

“Thanks,” Mac mumbles. 

“You like my socks?” Jack wiggles one of his bandaged feet.  

“No, Jack. I was just kidding.” Matty sighs. “But, seriously, you guys are lucky to be alive. Unfortunately, Duke Jacoby can't say the same thing, because he never made it out of that coffin. I just got off the phone with the CIA. Duke Jacoby is now officially KIA.”

“Well, that is fantastic news,” Mac says, then glances at Jack. “No offense.”

“No, none taken. RIP. No one's happier seeing him in the rearview mirror than me.” Jack’s more than happy to bury Duke six feet under, and the memories too. He glances at where Dixie, her red dress vivid in the morning light, is sitting cuffed in a police car with its door open and an officer leaning on it. “What's gonna happen to her?”

Matty follows his gaze. “Dixie Lee Jacoby will be buried here, right alongside her husband, Duke. But as far as the unidentified con woman in handcuffs over there, we're gonna put her skills to good use. I just negotiated a deal to have her charges dropped in exchange for her helping the CIA to make better cover identities. NOPD should be getting the word right about...now.”

As Jack watches, the officer speaks into his shoulder radio, nods, then helps the woman out of the car and unlocks her handcuffs. She rubs her wrists and glances toward the three of them, and Jack shrugs.

“Matty, you going soft or something?” Jack asks. 

“Seems the CIA sees a precedent for recruiting the occasional talented former criminal,” Matty says, smiling a little. “Provided she follows the terms of her recruitment, that past is completely cleared and she can start over a free woman.” Mac smiles just a little.  _ Guess you really made an impression on her, kiddo.  _ The Matty Jack knows from last year would never have done something so risky. “And since  _ you, _ ” Matty turns back to Jack, “are spending the next few weeks on injury leave, the very first thing I am doing when we get home is ordering a full review of your after action reports. Every last one.”

“Yeah, well, as horrible as that sounds, it's better than being barbecued alive. I look forward to what I'm sure will be an unending ass whooping.”

He looks up when Dixie...well, whoever she is, walks over to them. “They told me you guys are responsible for my release. Thank you.”

“Thank her.” Jack points to Matty. “Or him. I had nothing to do with it.”

“Thank you. Seriously. And for what it's worth I am so sorry for everything I put y’all through.”

“That is so sweet. Apology accepted.” Jack shrugs. “Now try and stick to the straight and narrow, huh?”

“No promises,” She says, smirking, and then realizes Matty is looking at her skeptically. “Joking. I promise.” She turns to Jack. “By the way, it's Dawn.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I kind of figured that when I saw the sun coming up.”

“No. The first question that you asked me. That's the answer. My real name is Dawn.”

“Nice to meet you, Dawn. I’m Jack.”

“Jack. I think I like that a lot better than Duke.”

“Me too, sweetheart.” Jack shakes his head. “If I never hear the name Duke again, I can die a happy man.”

“Well, as much fun as this is, you have a plane to catch,” Matty says. “You’ll be flying to D.C. for intake interviews and training, and then you’ll be placed with one of the CIA’s domestic offices.”

“If they send you to California, look me up sometime,” Jack says, grabbing a notepad from inside the ambulance and scribbling down his phone number. “Here’s my number. If you get the voicemail, ignore the stuff about the tile business.”

“Tile business?” Dawn asks, frowning. “That’s what you do for a living?”

“Long story.” Jack shrugs. “Good luck.”

“Thanks. I’ll see you around, cowboy.” She smiles, then walks away.

“Jack, pick your jaw up off the ground,” Matty says. “You two have a plane to catch too.” Jack chuckles.

“So you really think she’s going to call you back?” Mac asks.

“I don’t know.” Jack shrugs. “At the very least, she’s got someone she can trust.” He glances at Mac. _ People who spend their lives on the wrong side of the law, trust is a luxury for them and it doesn’t come easy.  _ Mac managed to stick it out with Phoenix because he trusted his team. Maybe if Dawn knows she has people in her corner, she can turn her life around too.  _ It’s worth a shot, at least. _ “Let’s go home, kiddo.”

* * *

Riley’s on her third cup of coffee, but the last piece of Duke Jacoby’s digital footprint. She irretrievably destroys it, then opens the cover file and initiates termination protocol. 

When the red “terminated” stamp flashes over Duke’s file onscreen, Bozer shakes his head. “RIP, Duke. We hardly knew ye.”

Riley turns back to him. “Mac, Jack and Matty are wheels up in 10. Only a few more hours before Matty walks back through that door.”

“And have you thought about what you're gonna say or not say?”

“Look, Bozer, what you did was stupid and selfish, and and shortsighted. But, after I decrypted your messages to Leanna I may have read a few.” 

“You did?” 

“It was kind of hard not to, ‘Snuggle-bear’.” Bozer groans, and Riley laughs at the look on his face.  _ Hey, nothing is sacred when you’re friends with a hacker. _ “And the parts that didn't make me want to throw up were actually really sweet.”

“So you're not gonna turn me in?” 

“I don't have to turn you in, because you're never gonna get caught. Let me see your phone.” She smiles. “I built this super encrypted app for Jack and I to use when we were in the field. If we went off script on missions and didn’t really want to broadcast it to everyone. Not even Patty has access to it.” She hands back the phone, the app open and ready for Bozer to add Leanna’s number. “Which means this conversation right here never happened.”

“Riley. Riley! Thank you, Riley.” He hugs her, and she returns it warmly.

“No. Thank you. For being there last night when I was losing it.” 

“That’s what friends are for. Always.” Bozer grins. “Hey, you want to go grab breakfast?” She nods.

“That’d be great, Boze.” 

* * *

HOME AGAIN

Jack unlocks the house door, pushing it open for Mac. “Whoa, hey, easy pup, walking wounded here,” he says, fending off Mickey’s enthusiastic greeting in advance.  

Mickey whines, sniffing tentatively at the wrappings on Mac’s hands and then shaking his head and sneezing.  _ I know it smells horrible. _ Mac’s almost thrown up more than once from a combination of pain and the smells of burnt skin and the thick antibiotic ointment. He’s not looking forward to that being a daily constant. 

Without thinking he reaches for the lock on the door, then flinches and gasps as the movement pulls at his bandages. 

“I got it.” Jack locks the door behind them, then heads for the guest room. “Just gonna toss in my go bag.”

_ I know it’s silly, to find Jack warning me where he’s going so reassuring. _ But after the man literally got snatched off the street and then almost killed, not being able to see where he is is giving Mac minor anxiety.

Bozer walks out of the kitchen, holding a dripping spatula. “Hey guys, I made pancakes…” He stops when he sees Mac holding his bandaged hands awkwardly in front of him. “Oh man. What happened…” Bozer trails off. “I’m so sorry, Mac.” 

Mac forces a swallow and a smile.  _ He doesn’t mean to make it worse. He’s just shocked. _ “I’m not really hungry, Boze. I just want to get cleaned up and go to sleep.” His clothes smell like smoke and burned skin and it’s awful. 

He heads down the hall to his room, closes the door, and reaches thoughtlessly for the button at the collar of his shirt. But his stiff hands brush against it, unable to properly pull the button through the cloth. He tugs at the fabric the best he can, hoping to work the button back through the hole, but instead the button pops off, rolling away under the dresser. He doesn’t even bother to try and pick it up. He can’t.

_ I can’t even do something as simple as unbutton my shirt.  _ Mac leans against the dresser and lets a few tears of helpless frustration trickle down his cheeks. 

This is so much worse than when he broke his hand. So much. That was only one hand damaged, and his fingers were still partially free of the cast. Now both his hands are useless lumps of white gauze. 

“J-jack?” It almost physically hurts, more than the burns themselves, to have to ask for help like this. It’s humiliating.  _ Everything I need my hands for, I now need someone else for. _ He hates the thought of someone else’s hands on his body, even Jack’s hands.  _ He won’t hurt me, I know, but… _

He just needs a few minutes. A few minutes to sit down and try to think through everything so there aren’t any more terrible surprises. He’s tired and the painkillers are making him a little loopy, and he doesn’t want anyone else’s hands near him right now but unless he wants to sleep in his grimy, smoky clothes, he has to. 

“Yeah kiddo?” He jumps at Jack’s sudden appearance in the doorway.  _ Oh, right. I called him.  _ “What did you need?” He holds out a water bottle, and Mac frowns. “Medical said lots of fluids, remember, or they’re gonna make you come back and go on an IV again.” Mac shivers. He doesn’t want to go back there, have more needles stuck in him. Getting his hands cleaned out was torture enough. 

“Uh, nothing. I’m fine.” Jack starts to close the door again, setting the water bottle on the dresser and nodding to it.  _ What are you doing? Sooner or later you have to admit this to him.  _ “Um...actually, I...I can’t get my shirt unbuttoned.”

“Aw kid.” Jack says. “Your hands, huh?”

“I can’t...can’t really hold onto anything. Or move my fingers. So…” 

“It’s okay. I got you.” Jack’s undamaged fingers move quickly, unfastening the buttons on the front and cuffs before tugging the sleeves gently over Mac’s hands and tossing the whole shirt in the laundry basket.

“Hey, I’m just gonna undo your belt real slow, okay?” Jack says, looking Mac directly in the eyes. He flushes and turns away.  _ It shouldn’t be this hard. _ But he can’t quite control the full-body shiver that results from feeling someone else’s hands on his clothing like that. “You gonna be okay, Mac?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”  _ No, I’m not. I’m broken. So messed up that I can’t even let Jack help me with my clothes.  _ He knows part of it is the pain meds making him a little off, that it’ll be better once the doctors aren’t forcing him to take them and he can be a little more normal. They’re just making it hard to focus and that’s bad because he has to remember the only person near him right now is Jack.  _ Jack won’t hurt me. Ever. _ He has to keep thinking it, over and over, as Jack helps him into a pair of sweatpants and one of his own old t-shirts. 

He hates asking for help. Not only is it pathetic, that he can’t even take off a shirt by himself, but he’s going to be dealing with this for _weeks._ _I won’t be able to take a shower, or brush my teeth, or eat or get dressed or...almost anything. And on top of that, the burns need consistent attention and redressing._ How long is it going to take before Jack gets tired of playing babysitter?

Jack glances down at Mac’s hands, then up at his face. “Okay, if you’re feeling up to it, let’s take another look at those.” 

* * *

Jack can only imagine how frustrating this must be for Mac.  _ He does so much with his hands.  _ And now they’re absolutely useless, wrapped up stiffly in layers of bandages that won’t be able to be done without for weeks. And on top of that, the kid’s residual trauma from prison means every time he needs help changing clothes, washing up, anything remotely personal and private, is going to be an uphill battle. 

And Mac’s clearly back in the headspace of considering himself a burden, because the whole time Jack is cleaning and treating his injuries, he keeps apologizing. “I’m sorry you have to…”

“Kiddo, no apologies necessary. You are not a burden, and I know that’s what’s going on in that head of yours so stop it right this second.” Jack rests a hand gently on the kid’s shoulder. 

“But you and Bozer, you shouldn’t have to fuss over me every second of the day.”

“Okay, first of all, we don’t mind. Second of all, because I know you don’t believe me, I am also on medical leave until my  _ feet _ heal.”  _ They’re nowhere near as bad as his hands, but still.  _ “And third, you saved my life today, so I feel like Wookie life debt applies like ten times over now.” 

Mac is quite obviously trying not to cry. Jack already knows it’s not the pain. He watched the kid try to walk on a busted ankle, and he’s seen Mac power through everything from internal injuries to self-inflicted stab wounds. Mac is humiliated and helpless, and that’s a hard thing for someone like him to bear.

He steers Mac to the bathroom, pulling out the set of supplies medical sent him with. He worked with EOD techs, he’s at least passingly familiar with burn treatment. He carefully detaches the bandages from the skin with the saline solution, wincing when Mac flinches and gasps.  _ This is a hundred times worse than pulling off a bandaid.  _ Jack feels a little teary himself, looking at the reddened, oozing, blistered skin.  _ Oh kiddo, you did all this for me. _

He looks from Mac’s hands to his face and sees that the kid has tears trailing down his face now. “Am I hurting you, kiddo?”

“No. No, you’re not.”  _ Please tell me that’s not your stupidly high pain tolerance talking. _

“What’s wrong, then?”

“They said…” He chokes, and Jack can see what an effort it is for the kid to get the words out. “They said there’s only a sixty percent chance that they’ll heal without permanent damage.” 

“That’s better odds than most of your plans, hoss.” Jack knows that to try and say something comforting will make Mac shatter completely. So he waits until he’s got the kid’s hands wrapped back up and Mac settled comfortably back in his bedroom. Then he sits down on the bed beside Mac and puts an arm around Mac’s shoulders. 

“There was so much going on,” Mac says softly. “And it hurt, and they were giving me so much medication, everything was kind of blurry. They were talking about infection and skin grafts and...all I really understood was that there’s a lot of ways this goes wrong, and I could lose fingers or even my hands.” He swallows hard. “What if...what if this goes wrong? I can’t do my job without my hands.”  _ And for you, not being able to do your job equates to being useless, not needed, and expendable. _

“It doesn’t matter if they heal properly or not, Mac, none of us are ever going to throw you away.” He shakes his head. “I know you well enough to guess that what’s going through that head of yours is something along the lines of ‘if my hands don’t work properly I’m useless and they won’t want me anymore’ and you  _ know _ that is a damn lie.”

Mac nods, sniffling. “I’m just scared.”  _ I can understand that. _ Jack was too close to a flash grenade in Mexico on a Delta op, and he spent a week in the hospital with his eyes bandaged, unsure if he’d ever get his sight back.  _ Scared the hell outta me. What good is a crack sniper without his eyes? _

“Hey, kiddo. It’s gonna be okay.” 

“Yeah.” Mac sniffs. “You’re alive, so it’s okay.” Jack feels all the guilt come flooding back.  _ If the kid loses the use of his hands that’s on me. He did it saving my life. _ “Mac, I’m so sorry. I never meant for you to risk so much...”

“If I...if I can’t do...what I do...anymore, I’ll figure it out. But if I lost you, Jack, I...I couldn’t live with that.” 

“And I can’t lose you either. So no matter what, we stick together. You go kaboom, I go kaboom, right?” Mac chuckles just a little.

Jack’s phone, the new one he picked up while he was waiting for Mac to get his burn care supplies from medical, begins to buzz, from where he tossed it on the bed. Mac flips it over with one bandaged hand. 

“It’s Dawn.” The text message is followed by the phone’s insistent default ringtone. Jack hasn’t had a chance to change it to Metallica yet. “Maybe you should answer.”

“Let it go to voicemail. Last I checked, she’s not the one who saved me from a fiery death with her bare hands.” Jack deliberately pushes the phone away. “Now, Bozer said he was making pancakes, and I am  _ starving. _ So what say we go chow down, huh?”

Mac holds up his hands. “Um…”  _ Right. He’s going to need help eating, too. _

“I got you, kiddo. And no one is gonna judge you. You did that saving my life. Least I can do is make sure you can eat.” Jack pulls Mac a little closer. “It’s okay, bud. It’s gonna be okay.”

Mac nods. “And hey, if you miss my mouth, Mickey’s gonna be really happy.”

“That’s the spirit.” Jack grins. “And you can look forward to getting payback when I’m a senile old man with no teeth.”

“Sure you aren’t already?”  _ And there’s the Mac we know and love. _

“Shut up, kid.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to impossiblepluto for the medical advice on burn care!


	16. Murdoc + Handcuffs

###  215-Murdoc+Handcuffs

MAC’S HOUSE

Riley sets her empty bottle on the bench between her and her mom and giggles. Mac is clearly frustrated, he’s looking at Jack and Bozer like they should definitely know what he’s doing twisting his hands around like that.

Riley’s just glad Mac’s hands are  _ visible. _ It’s only been a few days since he got the okay to take the final compression bandages off, and she can still see the pink new skin on the palms and up the fingers. She cringes in sympathy every time she thinks about him having to be careful.  _ I skinned both my palms trying to learn to skateboard in high school and it sucked.  _

“Jaguar!” Jack shouts.

Bozer frowns. “Panther! Wait. A wolverine! And not Hugh Jackman, the actual animal.” Riley holds back a chuckle. 

“A bear!” 

“A tiger!” 

“Tiger-bear.” Jack says, straight-faced. 

Bozer looks as confused as Riley’s ever seen him. “Man, what the hell is a tiger-bear?”

“It's a criss-cross. Had to kill one with my bare hands once.”  _ Jack, really? _ Mac reaches down and picks up a glass from the table. 

Riley waves her hands at him. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Mac, we talked about this. No props.” Mac sighs and sets down the glass. 

Diane leans in to whisper to Riley. “I thought you said he was smart.”  _ I’m just glad she’s here. _ It took some convincing to get Mom to come back to a house that the last time she was in it was raided by SWAT.  _ She was pretty upset we didn’t tell her about Mac’s criminal past, but she isn’t afraid of him.  _ Riley insisted that Diane talk to Mac alone tonight, before everyone got here, and she did.  _ He probably felt pretty bad thinking she was going to judge him for his past, and I didn’t want that bothering him every time he looked at her.  _ It seems like things went well, he hasn’t been avoiding her and they were talking at dinner so Riley’s pretty sure everything is forgiven. 

Matty makes a buzzing sound, shaking her head. “Time's up!” Mickey jumps up from where he’s been laying between Bozer and Jack and howls. 

 “What?” Mac asks. “I was almost there!”

“No, you weren’t. Girls rule. Boys...don't.” 

Mac sighs, sitting down next to Jack. “Fridge.”

There’s an assembled chorus of “What?” 

“The word was refrigerator.”

Bozer shakes his head, looking at Mac like he grew an extra head. “Refrigerator? Mac, in what parallel dimension do refrigerators have claws?” 

“Were you milking a cow?’ Jack asks. 

“Even I couldn’t figure that out.” Sam sets her own bottle of Coke aside. She’s not allowed to drink alcohol because of the liver transplant, but so far everything is healing as hoped and her rehab is going well.  _ Her body isn’t showing any signs of rejecting the transplant.  _

“I was tracing the shape of the evaporator coils on the back of every refrigerator.” Mac sounds exasperated, like it should have been the easiest thing in the world to figure out. He looks kind of dejected; Riley figures he feels like he’s let his team down. But just as quickly, he gets up, grinning, walks into the kitchen, and actually tries to pull the fridge out from the wall.

“Hey! Hands! Easy there kiddo!” Jack says. “We believe you!” He pulls Mac back toward the deck. “You are not undoing all my good work.” Mac grins sheepishly down at his red palms. Jack pulls Mac down to sit beside him again. “Fellas, let's go now. The girls are cleaning our clocks.”

“I think you mean cleaned, Jack.” Cage smirks. “The ladies have cleaned your clocks.”

“We're going to twenty, right?” Jack asks. “I think we can come back in the second half, don’t you, Mickey?” Even the dog looks skeptical, letting out a soft woof before flopping back down on the floor. 

“Seventeen to two, Jack.” Matty raises an eyebrow.

“So you're saying there's a chance?”

“Mathematically, nope.” Mac shrugs when Jack frowns at him. “Can’t argue with numbers, Jack.” 

“Really, I'm just embarrassed for you at this point.” Matty says. 

“Embarrassed? Come on now, fellas. We're getting our second wind, right?” 

“Riiiight.” Bozer’s skepticism is abundantly clear. His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he stands up quickly to take it, smiling when he opens the message.  _ Must be Leanna. _

“Oh, speaking of seconds, who wants a refill?” Riley asks, hoping to distract attention from Bozer. He doesn’t need to get caught. Matty’s watching him with a slight frown, that look she gets when she’s assessing a situation and finding the connections. 

“Me.” Diane says. Mac holds up a hand. 

Jack follows her into the kitchen. “Yeah, I'll help you. You got to be drunk to figure out what he's doing.” He looks down at the hourglass sand timer Matty’s been using to keep track of their Charades rounds. “And what's with that soap opera stopwatch? It's not regulation.”

“It's an antique.” Matty glances at him. “I thought they had these back in your day.”

“Oooh. That was cold, Matty.” Bozer chuckles. He’s putting his phone away again. 

“I like it,” Mac volunteers. 

Matty gives him an approving nod. “Thank you.”

“Do you want to take it apart and see how it works? You're much better at that than charades,” Bozer says. “I’ll have seconds too, Riley.” 

She walks over to the fridge Mac just tried to relocate and pulls out another pack of beer, trying not to trip over Mickey, who clearly thinks she’s going to get him something too. She grins at him, reaches into the cupboard for the dog treats, and holds one out. “Sit.” Mickey does. “Roll over.” Paws waving wildly, Mickey does just that. “Good boy. Here you go.” Jack steps up beside her. “I see what you’re doing here.”

“I’m getting everyone refills.” 

“Uh-uh, don’t act all innocent on me. I see you trying to play  _ Parent Trap _ here.” 

“Actually, that would require me to be twins, and I don’t think the world could handle that.” Riley laughs. 

“Damn right it couldn’t.” Jack smiles. “But seriously. I know how much you want this to work out, and...I just don’t want to break your heart  _ and _ your mom’s if this goes sideways again, ya know?”

Riley nods. “But don’t let it stop you from taking a chance.”

“What if it ends the same as it did last time?”

“What if it doesn’t?” Riley isn’t going to let this go easily. Mom was happy when she was with Jack. And Jack was happy with her. She just wants that for both of them again, and they have a second chance now. There’s a knock at the door and she grins at Jack, spinning around to go answer it and stop Mickey from barking his head off. “Saved by the pizza guy.” 

But the man at the door isn’t carrying three large specials (one pepperoni, one veggie, one meat lovers). He’s all too familiar anyway.  _ Henry Fletcher. _ “Hi, does Angus MacGyver live here?”

Riley grabs the small handgun out of the pocket of her jacket. Ever since Murdoc shot Cage, Riley hasn’t gone anywhere without it. “Don’t move. Jack! Go get to Mac! Now!” If Fletcher is here, Murdoc can’t be far behind and Mac is vulnerable. Jack doesn’t need Riley to tell him that, though, he already has his gun out and is rushing back to the deck. 

Riley turns back to Fletcher. “Hands in the air. On your knees. On your knees!” Fletcher slowly cooperates, and Riley doesn’t like how calm he seems about all this. Something is very, very wrong. Jack rushes back in, with Mac and Cage with him. Jack and Cage both have their guns drawn. Behind them, Bozer is pulling Diane inside and Matty is locking the doors. Mickey is growling, clearly picking up on the tension, teeth bared.  

“No sign of Captain Nutbar,” Jack says. “Where is he, huh?” Fletcher only smiles. “You move and I'll kill you. Shake him down, Cage.” 

“Riley?” Riley turns to see her mom staring at her in shock. Or more accurately, at her hands, and the gun in them that’s currently leveled at Fletcher’s head.

“Mom, just stay back.”

“What's going on?” Mom looks like she’s about to lose it completely, eyes wide and horrified. Her voice is skating on the edge of hysterical. 

“We'll explain later. Mom. I promise.” 

“Every time I come to this house someone has a gun!”

“Well, if it’s any consolation, Mac hates guns. Doesn’t even own one,” Bozer says, reaching for Mickey’s collar to pull the snarling dog out of the middle of the chaos. Diane glares at him. “Okay, not helping.” 

“He's clean.” Cage steps back, fingers white-knuckled around her sidearm. 

Fletcher glances around the room as nonchalantly as if he’s simply a guest, not facing three drawn weapons. “Wow. Murdoc was right.” He turns to Mac, smiling in a way Riley doesn’t like. She can tell Jack isn’t a fan either, he’s practically growling. “You really do live here. You know, it's not very secure.”

“Where is Murdoc?” Jack snaps. “Answer me, or you’re gonna be needing two knee replacements real soon.” Riley hears Diane gasp and when she turns around, her mom has a hand over her mouth in shock. 

“I know my word doesn't mean much, but I promise you, Murdoc is nowhere near us. I came alone and unarmed.”

“So why are you here?” Jack asks.  

“We have something very important to discuss, and trust me, you're going to want to hear what I have to say.” Fletcher looks around at Jack, Cage, and Riley. “You know, this is all so unnecessary. I just came here to show you something.”

“Then show us.” Riley snaps. “Quit stalling.” She can’t help but feel like this is an elaborate setup for Murdoc to make his move. 

Fletcher reaches into his jacket, and Mickey starts barking again as Jack shouts. “No! Don’t you move.”

“So suspicious, Jack. I’m only getting my phone.”

“You know, you get shot, it’s your own fault for making me jumpy. Last time you said you were going for heart pills and then came back with a gun. So you’ll forgive me for not having a lot of faith in you right now.”  Fletcher slowly pulls out his phone and hits play on a video. 

The screen is dark, but it clearly shows Murdoc, his hands chained, thrashing around and shouting at someone who isn’t visible on the screen. “Get me out! Now! You’ll regret this!” He screams. His eyes look wild, and Riley cringes at the utterly unhinged anger in his voice. Fletcher shuts off the video. 

“Well, Murdoc sure doesn't look happy,” Bozer says. 

“Yeah, well, with Murdoc, looks can be deceiving.”

“I think he’s telling the truth, for what it’s worth,” Sam says. “That’s genuine anger, in that video.” She’s biting her lip, pacing slightly.  _ Seeing him again probably isn’t any too pleasant. _

“What's this about?” Matty asks. 

“Revenge.” Riley frowns, and she can see her skepticism on the faces of everyone else in the room as well. Fletcher must notice it too, because he continues. “Well, before Murdoc recruited me into his growing collective, I had a pretty good life hiding in plain sight.”

“And then Murdoc outed you.” Matty says. “Boo-hoo. You're in the wrong place for sympathy.” 

“You said Murdoc recruited you to a collective. So there's more of you?” Bozer asks 

“Yes. And each one of them has a story just like mine.”

Jack shakes his head, looking exasperated. “Oh, come on. You expect us to believe there's an anti-Justice League that got tired of the exposure and just turned on him? Is that it?”

“Well, that and the fact that it’s a little hard to work for a complete and total psychopath. It would be a shame for all of us losing our normal lives to be a total waste.” Fletcher shrugs. “His little collective can function quite well without him now that he’s done all the work of bringing us together. And I'm here as their representative to offer you a deal. In twelve hours, we are willing to hand Murdoc over to you. All we ask in return is ten million in cash and…”

“Oh, is that all?” Jack says sarcastically.  

“I'm not done. The only agents allowed at the exchange are you two.” He glances at Mac and Jack. “After the exchange, no one follows us, no trackers. We walk away clean. I'll give you a few minutes to discuss, but the clock is ticking. As you can imagine, we have other interested parties.” 

Jack pulls Matty and Riley aside into the kitchen, and Mac follows, wide-eyed and clinging to Jack’s side like a frightened puppy. Mickey, the literal puppy, is pressed close against Mac’s leg, whining and gently pawing his leg. He’s trying to get Mac to calm down, his trained response to sensing an oncoming panic attack. “We don't need a few minutes. This is a trap, plain and simple.”

“It might be, but it's also the best lead that we've had on Murdoc in months. If there's even a remote chance that taking this deal leads him back to federal custody, well, then we have to take it.” Matty says. “You want him behind bars as much as I do, Jack, and this might be the only way.”

“But what about this collective? Taking this deal means helping every killer Murdoc recruited go free.”

“And in exchange, we get Murdoc.” Riley looks over at Mac. She can see, because she knows him, the thin lines of stress around his lips and across his forehead. The grey shadows under his eyes.  _ Murdoc is a constant threat to him. _ As long as that psychopath is walking around loose, Mac is living in fear. He’s constantly looking over his shoulder, jumping at shadows. Riley’s watched the comfortable confidence he had last year, after they finally got his conviction overturned and his job at the Phoenix official, stripped away by what Murdoc has already done, and Mac’s fears of what might be still to come. She leans in a little closer so Fletcher won’t be able to hear a thing. “Besides, I think we can whip up a way to track that cash without something a scanner will detect. We used chemical tags to track that guy in New Orleans. Mac, could you whip up something similar to coat the money?”

He nods. “I think so. And if I have enough time I could stabilize it so the chemical signature lasts a lot longer.” 

Matty looks satisfied, but Jack doesn’t. “I can't believe you guys are actually considering this. Huh? We're going to trust a former fifth-grade teacher-slash-professional killer? Why am I the only one feeling duped here?” 

“You're not, Jack.” Matty looks up at him. “But this might be our only chance to get our hands on Murdoc.”

“And it might all be part of his elaborate plan to get his hands on Mac again. I can’t agree to that.” Jack shudders. “I’ll go, if you absolutely want this to happen, but Mac can’t come.” He glances from his gun, to Fletcher, to Mac.

“Jack…” Mac says, putting a hand on Jack’s arm. He’s pale and a little shaky, but he looks determined. 

“No. Listen.” Jack pulls him aside. “I know the deal’s supposed to be the two of us, but Bozer could whip off a pretty fair mask, they wouldn’t know till it was too late…”

“We can’t risk it. Jack, if anything’s even slightly wrong they’ll kill you and whoever’s with you. Or worse, use you against me.” Mac shivers. “If I can’t go, you can’t go either.” He stops, leaning on the counter, looking exhausted and worried and small. “But...I want us to catch Murdoc. So I’m willing to do this. You’ll be with me the whole time, I trust you.” 

“For the record, kid, I hate this plan.” Jack sighs. “But if this is what you want, then I guess we’re doing it.” Riley knows Jack wants Mac to get closure as much or more than the rest of them do.  _ But he’s so scared of what could go wrong.  _ “I am not letting you outta my sight, got it?” Mac nods. 

Matty walks back into the entryway, where Cage is still holding a gun on Fletcher and looks like she’s developing an itchy trigger finger. “Looks like you got yourself a deal. But I promise you this If you double-cross us, you will be the very first person I hunt down.”

Fletcher takes a sharp breath, but it’s clear even that threat hasn’t exactly fazed him. Riley’s looking forward to out-conning him in that deal. “Lovely. I'll be in touch with the deets.” He starts to stand up, then shakes his head at Jack and Cage still holding guns on him. “You mind?” 

“Get out of here,” Jack snarls. 

“See you tomorrow, gentlemen.” The door slams behind him, and Mickey barks after him one last time, a harsh angry sound of territorial possessiveness, before turning and running to Mac, who collapses into a chair, breathing hard and burying his fingers deeply in the dog’s thick fur. 

“Now, will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?” Diane asks. 

Jack sighs, leaning against the doorframe. “We just made a deal with the devil to catch Satan himself. That's what's going on.”

* * *

WAR ROOM

HOPEFULLY THEY HAVEN’T JUST MADE THE BIGGEST MISTAKE EVER

“How’s your mom holding up?” Bozer asks when he walks into the War Room. Riley doesn’t even look up from her rig.  

“On a scale of ‘time I came home with my first tattoo’ to ‘held at gunpoint in a SWAT raid’?” Riley shrugs. “Basically, think last Christmas when you found out Mac was an agent and didn’t tell you.”

“That bad, huh?” She shrugs. 

“Well, we put her in a Phoenix saferoom for her own protection, since Fletcher saw her, so…”

“You haven’t talked to her yet?”

“Boze, what am I gonna tell her?” She sighs. “You were pissed at Mac for a long time. I can’t afford to get into that with my mom right now. My focus has to be on Murdoc, and stopping him.” 

She turns back to the screen, where the little dot that is Mac and Jack’s SUV is driving slowly through the Indiana backcountry. The car winds its way through the leafless trees and snow-patched ground, and Bozer shivers. “They’re literally in the middle of nowhere. If something happens…”

“We’re not going to let it. I have eyes on the drop point, and…” The screen fritzes out, and the comms go dead in a burst of static. So does her tracking on the chemical tag Mac set up on the money. 

“Riley, what was that?” Matty asks. 

“I don’t know. All our signals are down. I just lost all sat feed and cell signal in the area.” She’s trying to use unsecured wifi or any kind of connection, but nothing is live. It’s like someone completely blacked out the whole area.  _ These guys are serious, and they have some serious talent working for them. _ She really hopes there’s a way to net them all, because people who can do this aren’t the sort you want walking around free. 

But even worse is the thought that now Mac and Jack are on their own. The last thing she saw before the screens went down was three SUVs approaching from the opposite direction.  _ They’re outnumbered, by a lot. And we don’t even know for sure if this is what Fletcher claimed it was.  _ Sam says she thinks he was telling the truth, but with Murdoc, it’s impossible to be sure. 

“They’re going in blind, to a meeting with Murdoc and God knows how many other psychos, and we can’t even warn them,” Bozer says shakily. 

“They’ll be alright,” Matty says. But Riley knows Matty’s only saying that to reassure them, and herself.  _ What have we done? _

* * *

38 MILES OUTSIDE INDIANAPOLIS

5 MILES TO PRISONER EXCHANGE

Mac glances at Jack’s fully equipped tac gear and the extra gun resting on the console. “Think you brought enough stuff?” 

“For the doc? Hell no. This whole thing still feels hinky to me. You know, back in the day, there's a mutiny, make the guy walk the plank.” Jack sighs. “I mean, why would Fletcher just hand Murdoc over to us, huh?” Mac won’t admit that the same thought’s been bothering him.  _ Murdoc wants me, badly. He would play any game to get his hands on me. _ “Want me to tell you why? 'Cause he wants you, and he wants me with you so he can force you to do whatever he wants. That's why. It's a big old bear trap.” Jack’s voice is uncharacteristically shaky. 

“I know, Jack. That's why you're not the only one who came prepared.” Mac holds up the small device he was working on last night in the lab while he was waiting for the mixture he coated the bills in to set into the paper.  _ Yeah, I didn’t get much sleep last night.  _ But he knows if he had slept, the only dreams he would have would be nightmares of Murdoc. 

“You brought something, too, huh? Please, tell me it's a death ray. Mini lightsaber? Phaser?”

Mac chuckles. “No. It’s a portable gas chromatograph.” Jack frowns at him. “Basically, it takes samples from the air and it scans them for explosive particulate matter.”

“So it's a bomb detector?” 

“Well, if you wanna put it that way...yeah.”

“Why didn't you say that?” 

Mac smiles. “Because it was more fun to make your brain start spinning and take your mind off Murdoc for a few minutes. You’re not the only one who can use that trick, you know.” 

“Damn, kid, you’re learning all the ‘tricks o’ me trade’,” Jack says, grinning and absolutely butchering an accent Mac doesn’t even recognize. “Guess I gotta come up with some new ones now, huh?” He taps his comms. “Hey, Riley, what do you see at the location Fletcher gave?” Mac flinches at the whine of feedback from the comms in his own ear. “Riley? Ri? Hey, does anyone copy?” He slams the steering wheel in frustration. “You kidding me? I think the comms just went out.”

Mac pulls out his phone, then sighs. “Cell towers are down, too. It's got to be the Collective. I guess Fletcher was serious when he said just us.”

“Big old bear trap…” Jack mumbles, making an agonized growling sound and taking his hands off the wheel for a moment to imitate claws. “Snap!”

“We knew what we were getting into.” But Mac knows it doesn’t sound like he believes it. Because he doesn’t.  _ I have no idea what we’re walking into, all I know is that it probably isn’t good.  _

Jack stops the car at the end of the covered bridge where Fletcher’s coordinates brought them. He pulls his gun and glances around. Mac steps out to stand beside him, shivering as a winter wind whips through the structure. It’s easy to forget, in California weather, that it’s still winter. And Indiana feels like a frigid wasteland right now. Riley said there’s a storm sweeping in, and Mac hopes they’re long gone by the time it hits. Being snowed in somewhere with Murdoc is not a pleasant thought. 

“I don’t like this, dude. There’s a lot of cover around here.” Jack scans the treeline behind them. “I'm not seeing anybody. Your little doohickey picking anything up yet?” 

Mac shakes his head. “No, nothing. If he did want to kill us, he didn’t rig the place beforehand.” He glances down at the device again and notices the red dots dancing across his chest, three of them. There’s three more on Jack. “Uh, Jack...I think they're here.”  _ Gotta love these guys and their need to be dramatic by using visible laser points. _

He can hear a vehicle’s tires crunching on the gravel road, and then an SUV pulls in under the bridge. It stops with a screech of brakes and Fletcher climbs out the driver’s side. “Morning, gents,” the man says, far too cheerfully. Mac shivers again, this time not from the bitter wind. “I trust you two are alone. As you can see, I am not.” 

“We may be alone, but we’re not stupid. Our whole vehicle is wired, and,” Jack points to Mac’s hand. “Mac here’s carrying a dead man switch.”  _ At least he didn’t call it a thermal detonator. _ Jack’s plans that hinge on rehashing movie plots tend to have a fifty-fifty success rate, depending on whether he remembers not to quote the lines directly.  _ But hopefully this keeps them from deciding to shoot us and Murdoc as soon as they get the money. _

“Cute. But, if you both behave yourselves, you won’t have to set off your little insurance policy, and you get to go home with a prize.” He pulls one of the rear doors open and yanks Murdoc out, one hand wrapped firmly around the assassin’s arm. Murdoc glares at him, but the second he looks up and sees Mac and Jack standing there, his angry stare is replaced with an eerie smile. 

“Oh, MacGyver. How I have  _ dreamed _ of our reunion. Although…” Murdoc frowns, then raises his cuffed hands. “These were on  _ you _ instead of me.” Mac shivers.  _ Please, just stop. _ He doesn’t know if the others, besides Jack, are aware of exactly what Murdoc is implying, but he’s pretty sure they’ve got at least a general idea. 

Murdoc starts toward them, still smiling sickeningly, but Fletcher yanks him back. “Cash first.”

Jack shakes his head. “Uh, how about no? You're not seeing one single dollar till we have Cuckoo-Ka-Choo in custody.”

“Well, I'm afraid that won't work. You see, I don't trust you.”

“How can you not trust us? We're the good guys.” Jack’s fingers are fidgeting against the trigger guard on his gun. 

“H-how about a show of good faith and we meet in the middle?” Mac asks.  _ Damn it, I hate that my voice does that. _ Now everyone can see he’s nervous. Fletcher nods, and Jack grabs the money out of their vehicle. 

He watches the lights dance on Jack’s chest while they walk.  _ Please, don’t let them call our bluff and shoot us. _ Jack sets down the money, and Fletcher pushes Murdoc toward him. Murdoc makes a beeline for Mac, but Jack catches him and spins him around, keeping a firm grip on his arm. Fletcher runs a small signal scanning device over the bag of money, then rifles through it, nodding to his men when he’s satisfied.  _ Good thing Phoenix keeps nearly flawless fake currency for deals like this. _ That’s no guarantee these guys won’t have a way to launder it anyway, and exchange it for the real deal, but at least Mac feels better about handing it over.  

Jack starts patting down Murdoc’s legs, and the man chuckles. “Careful, Jack, I’m quite ticklish. Why don’t you let little Angus do that instead? I’m sure those clever hands wouldn’t miss  _ anything. _ ” Mac swallows hard. He just wants this to be over so they can go, before Murdoc humiliates him in front of these men anymore. 

Pleasure doing business with you.” Fletcher turns back one more time. “Oh, and, Murdoc, if turning you in didn't pay so well, I'd have killed you myself. Remember that.” Mac hopes Riley’s still able to track the chemical tag on the money; he doesn’t like the idea of these guys getting away is disconcerting.  _ Wonder how long it’ll be before they realize most of the money in that bag is fake. _ Hopefully long enough for them to make good on their escape. 

“Let's go.” Jack pulls Murdoc back toward their vehicle. “You drive, Mac. I got him.” 

* * *

ROAD TRIP WITH MURDOC

NOT ON JACK’S BUCKET LIST

Being in the same vehicle with Murdoc is making Jack’s skin crawl. He can’t imagine how Mac must feel. Murdoc hasn’t said a thing since they put him in here, but he hasn’t taken his eyes off Mac either.  _ Good thing the kid’s got his eyes on the road and driving to distract him from Lord Nutbar.  _ Jack hates anyone looking at any of his kids the way Murdoc is looking at Mac right now.

“Do me a favor, Looney Tunes,” Jack growls.

“Anything for you, Jack.” The man’s voice is so sickeningly ingratiating. Jack hates it so much. 

“Ditch the creepy smile or I'll hop back there and slap it off your face.”

“I'm sensing some anger, Jack. Still mad at me for killing your friend last Christmas? Oh, how was little Debbie's funeral, by the way? I meant to send flowers.” 

Mac turns for just a moment. “Well, I hate to break it to you, but  _ Cage _ is very much alive.”

“Yeah, I guess you'll have to erase that notch off your belt, fruit loop.” Jack’s really glad he’s sitting right here holding a gun on their resident psycho, but he’s  also a little frustrated with the fact that Mac’s only going ten over the speed limit.  _ Kid’s got a hang-up about breaking the law sometimes. _ Jack can understand him not wanting to get pulled over, and granted there has been some ice and drifted snow on the roads, but he also wants to get them back to Phoenix as soon as humanly possible, so they can throw Murdoc in a black hole and get him far far away from Mac. 

“Really? That's...less surprising than it should be. How many lives you think she’s used up by now?”

Murdoc is still grinning eerily. Jack’s had more than enough. “He just told you you're not nearly as good as you think you are, and by nightfall you'll be back in a ten-by-ten, so what are you still smiling about?”

“Just daydreaming.” Murdoc nods, glancing in the rearview mirror. “Have to do something to pass the time on this little roadtrip, and since I happen to be alone in the backseat…” He glances at Mac in the mirror as he says it.

“You say anything more and I’ll come join you and knock your teeth out.” 

“Oh, if it’s any consolation, Jack, I’m not daydreaming about dear little Angus. At least not right now.” Murdoc shrugs. “Do you remember when you were a kid, and you'd be playing in your backyard, and you come across a spider, and you scoop it into your hand, take it inside, and you spend  _ hours _ alone in your room pulling its legs off, one by one by one, until it can't move anymore. And then, just when this creature's reached peak terror, you'd squish it into jelly with your thumb.”  _ Okay, that’s just sick. _

“Seriously?” Jack asks. 

“What? I'm the only one that did that?”  _ No, but the other people who did are other serial killers.  _

“Does this disturbing trip down memory lane have a point?” Mac asks. Jack can see how tightly the kid’s hands are clenched around the steering wheel.  _ He was at Murdoc’s mercy once. That psycho did the same thing to him, drawing out his torture to terrify Mac even more. _ Jack has the sick feeling that letting Mac leave that room was always part of Murdoc’s plan, Fletcher or no Fletcher.  _ It’s just another piece of his torture. Letting Mac think he’s free but forcing him to look over his shoulder every day. _ The game isn’t over, not for Murdoc. Which is why they need to put him somewhere secure and throw away the key. 

“Of course. There's  _ always _ a point, MacGyver.” Murdoc glances in the rearview mirror, then turns to Jack. “I am smiling,  _ Jack _ , because when I catch those people who handed me over to you, I'm going to play with them the same way I did my spiders.

Jack glances at Mac. “Let me shoot him. Mac, come on.”

“No.”

“Please? I know in my heart it's the right thing to do.”

“Oh, Angus doesn’t want you to kill me, Jack. Because deep down, he knows, he’s incomplete without me. Two sides of the same coin, isn’t that right?” Murdoc laughs. “He’s as lost without me as I am without him.”

“You know, you have an inflated sense of your own importance there, Doc.” He sounds like he’s lifting lines right out of some trashy paperback, and the thought sickens Jack.  _ Does he really think he’s in love with Mac, or worse, that Mac cares about him? _ Jack knows Murdoc’s psychotic, but is he really so unhinged as to believe that? 

“Mother always said I was special.”

“We’re here.” Mac pulls over to the side of the road, tires screeching. Jack pulls Murdoc out of the back and starts shoving him toward the helicopter. Murdoc laughs. 

“Oooh going for a ride in a whirlybird. Hashtag fun.” 

They’re almost to the chopper when Jack hears a strange beeping noise. It’s coming from Mac’s knapsack. Mac reaches in, pulls out his little bomb detector thing, and frowns at it, then looks up at the chopper. Jack sees the second the realization hits. “Jack! Run!” Jack turns around, but he only gets three steps away before there’s a deafening boom, a wave of heat rolls over his back, and he’s flung to the ground, shrapnel flying over his head and the angry roar of flames the last things he’s aware of before he blacks out. 

* * *

Mac rolls over slowly. Everything hurts. His legs are burned, if only minimally. His head aches, he’s pretty sure he has some shrapnel cuts on his arm and side, and the thing he’s actually focused on right now is the excruciating pain in his hands. He caught himself with them when he landed, not even thinking, and now the tender palms are scraped and gashed.  _ I really should have worn gloves.  _ He glances at them as he stumbles to his feet, they’re bleeding. 

“Jack. Jack!” He leans down over Jack, the back of his head looks reddened and there’s a cut leaking blood down the arm of his tac shirt, but Mac can’t see anything stabbed into his back. Jack takes a deep, gasping breath, then rolls over, a hand going to his ribs above his chest holster.  _ Yeah, that probably wasn’t fun to land on. _ “You okay?” 

“I'm a little woozy, but I'm still breathing. And apparently bleeding.” Jack glances at his bloodstained sleeve. “Damn it, I really liked this shirt.”

“I'm fine, too, over here. Thanks for asking.” Murdoc looks up at Mac, and the blood trickling down from the corner of his mouth makes him look eerily like a vampire. Mac shivers. 

“Shut up. Nobody cares,” Jack snaps, scrambling to his feet. “Okay, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that was not an accident.”

“We’ve got to get out of here.” Mac doesn’t know who set them up, but whoever it is is good, to have gotten to the chopper before them. Which means they can’t be far away. 

Jack glances toward the smoking hunk of metal that used to be their SUV; there’s a helicopter blade sticking right out of the hood. “Yeah, well, that thing's trashed. We're not going anywhere in that. I don’t think a few paperclips and some duct tape are gonna fix that, Mac.” 

“Your insurance rates are going to absolutely skyrocket,” Murdoc mutters. 

“I thought I told you to…”Jack stops as gunfire rattles and bullets ping off the SUV and the flaming wreck of the helicopter. “Take cover now!” He yanks Mac behind the SUV, and Murdoc follows them. He slides in right beside Mac, and his cuffed hands are wandering a little much for Mac’s comfort.  _ I’m pinned down in a firefight and the only thing I can focus on is this creep. _ Most people would probably say that’s some skewed priorities, but Mac would almost rather be dead than have Murdoc get his hands on him again. 

A black pickup slides around the bend in the road, raising a cloud of snow and dust. “Who is this guy?” Jack shouts. “Friend of yours?”

“Come on, Jack. We both know I don't have friends.”

“We’ve got to get out of here now. Go, go, go!” Jack pushes Mac ahead of him toward a collection of buildings, and Mac flinches when the man’s hand hits a bruise on his shoulder blade. Part of the helicopter must have hit him in the explosion. “I’ll cover us!” Jack’s firing in the general direction of the pickup, and Mac hears the low explosion as a tire blows out, and then a crunch. He doesn’t turn around to see what the truck hit. 

He ducks into the dilapidated building, thankful that the door is half off its hinges and easy to get through. He looks back outside, Jack is crouching low under the flimsy protection of the ruined chopper, still giving some cover fire.  _ Jack, hurry, please. _ The longer he stays out there, the more chance he’ll catch a bullet. And the more time Murdoc has alone with Mac. 

He’s standing much too close, Mac can feel the man’s breath on his neck and his hands against Mac’s legs.  _ Don’t touch me, get away from me! _ He pushes Murdoc back, watching with his heart in his throat while Jack breaks cover and runs for the building. He stumbles once, but Mac can’t see any new wounds when Jack throws himself through the door and joins Mac in the corner. 

Murdoc is laughing. Mac doesn’t think he’s ever heard a more eerie sound. 

“Hey, what's so funny? What are you laughing at? Huh? This was all part of your plan, wasn't it, crime genius, huh? Dangling yourself out there as bait to get us all blown up. Ha, ha, ha, very funny.”  _ No, he’s laughing at me. At my pathetic attempt to keep myself safe from him.  _ Part of Mac wants to tell Jack exactly what Murdoc is doing, but another part of him is too ashamed to admit that he’s so spooked by simple proximity. 

“Come on, Jackie boy, you know me better than that. If I was behind this, you wouldn't be in any danger of actually dying. You’d be watching helplessly while I made precious little Angus  _ scream. _ ” Mac shivers. That’s exactly the scene that haunts his nightmares. 

“You say another thing like that about my kid, and you’ll be the one screaming.” Mac thinks Murdoc might be better off taking his chances with their mystery killer than with a pissed-off Jack. 

“I'm just spitballing here, but you get the point. Come on. This was a double-cross, the worst one in the history of double-crosses.”

Jack doesn’t relax his trigger finger. “Yeah. Fletcher took our money and he circled back to kill this toolbox himself. And that's a win-win right there.”

Mac shakes his head.  _ If he wanted to kill us he could have done it on the bridge. As soon as he got out of there, he could have had his snipers shoot and even if we had a dead man switch it wouldn’t have mattered.  _ “Wait, look, there's another possibility here. Fletcher. He said that there were other interested parties who wanted Murdoc, so maybe he went to someone else before he came to us.”

Jack nods, it looks like he’s coming to the same conclusion Mac has.“Yeah, and then that certain someone tracked Fletcher to kill Murdoc himself. It's a whole lot cheaper that way. So the real question is, Murdoc, who wants you dead? Besides me?” 

“Pull up a chair, boys, this could take a while.”

“We ain't pulling up no chair. We're going to figure this out on the plane on the way back to the Phoenix. Come on.” Jack grabs Murdoc’s arm, and Mac breathes a tiny sigh of relief when the man is well out of his personal space. 

The place they’ve wandered into is some abandoned manufacturing complex, with moldy, graffitied concrete walls, smashed out windows, and meltwater running in streams over the floor. Mac shivers. Even out of the wind, it’s still damp and cold. 

He pulls his phone out and checks it again, hopeful, but there’s still no signal. “Cell towers are still down.”

“Oh, great, so we're on our own with Murdoc and his soon-to-be-dead, unidentified friend.” 

“Again,  _ not _ my friend.” Murdoc says. “Haven’t you been paying attention?”

“Well, whoever he is, he can't be far behind. We need to figure out who we're dealing with here, Mac. Pronto.” Murdoc moves a little closer to Mac again, and Jack yanks him back.

“Easy on the leash there, Jack.” Murdoc smiles with that same sickly pleased grin. “What are you so worried about?”

Mac tries to change the subject before Murdoc says anything even more demeaning. “If we can take a picture of him and somehow get it to Phoenix, then they can run facial recognition.”

“How the hell we supposed to do that? We can't get close enough to the Terminator without being terminated.” Jack glances out the windows. “And we don’t even know where he is.” 

Murdoc clears his throat, and Mac and Jack both turn to look at him. He’s staring at them like they’re idiots. 

“What?” He asks when Jack frowns at him. “Set a trap. Come  _ on _ , nature photographers use lures to take photos of dangerous animals. This is no different. Draw the man out. Set your camera to record and autosend and then when cell towers are working again, voila , the video will wing its way across the country to dear Matilda.” He smiles ingratiatingly. “Sound about right, Angus? Hey, do I get some brownie points for figuring something out before our resident genius?” Mac can only guess what kind of a favor Murdoc wants. 

“No, you don’t, you psycho. You get to stay alive.  _ If _ it even works.” Jack turns to Mac. “Hey, is he just trying to get us all shot?”

“Actually, that's exactly what I had in mind.” Mac sighs. He really hates admitting Murdoc is right. He hates it even more when Murdoc gives him a thumbs-up with his cuffed hands. 

“Great minds, MacGyver. Great minds.”

“Jack, I need your phone.” 

“No way, man. Smash your own damn cell phone. Mine got toasted when the helicopter went snap-crackle-pop.” Jack grins, for just a moment. 

Murdoc glances out the windows, and the freaky grin falls off his face. “Boys, whatever we're planning on doing, you may want to hurry things along.”

Mac follows the man’s gaze to where there’s a black shadow moving outside the frost-covered glass.

“Hey, this way,” Jack whispers, pulling Murdoc along. “Who  _ is _ this guy?”  _ I wish we could answer that. _

* * *

THE PHOENIX FOUNDATION

THIS IS ONE OF THE DAYS MATTY SORT OF WISHES SHE’D NEVER HEARD OF IT

Matty paces the situation room, watching the five monitors currently devoted to attempting to restore their connection to Mac and Jack in Indiana. “People, I've got operatives in the field that I can't see or talk to. Where are we on restoring my comms and sat feed?” Patty’s on the phone with the FCC, trying to push a response on getting the cell towers back online. 

_ Mac and Jack are MIA in a mission that involved Murdoc. _ Matty is dreading the moment when she gets a message from that psychopath showing her agents broken and bloodied.  _ I can’t quite bring myself to believe that this isn’t a trap. _ She’s starting to regret okaying this.  _ And if something happens to either of them, I’ll never forgive myself. _

Riley speaks up from where her rig is connected to a whole desktop system. “Um, the cell company just got two of their towers working again.” She stops when her computer makes a pinging sound of an upload occuring. “Whoa, whoa, hang on. Mac's phone just started syncing a large video file to the cloud.”

_ No. _ Matty doesn’t want to see it.  _ What has Murdoc done to them? _ The photos from the warehouse last summer are painfully vivid in her memory.  _ What are we about to see? What is he doing?  _ She knows how much pleasure Murdoc would take in humiliating Mac and angering Jack.  _ And he would love knowing that I had to watch helplessly while he gloated. _

“Matty?” Riley asks. “It-it’s loaded...It’s ready to play.” Her voice is shaking, she must have the same idea Matty does.  _ We have to watch it. We need to know. _ “Forward it to Oversight, then play it.” Riley nods, swallowing. Her fingers are shaking when she presses play. 

She breathes out a faint sigh of relief when an alive and uninjured Mac appears onscreen, with Jack holding a cuffed Murdoc in the background. “Okay,” Mac says, and the camera sways dizzyingly as he settles it somewhere. “Not sure if you guys are gonna get this before we're dead, but we have Murdoc. Someone's trying to kill us. And if this works, you're about to get a real good look at him.”

“We need to go right now, buddy,” Jack says, and Matty can hear the fear in his voice. “Let's go.” Mac disappears from the screen. So do Jack and Murdoc. 

“Okay.” Matty can feel herself shaking, coming down off an adrenaline dump.  _ They’re still alive, or at least that’s what it looks like. And Murdoc isn’t in control.  _ “Fast-forward.” The video continues to show an empty warehouse, and then suddenly a figure walks into frame. “Okay, stop. Take a screen grab and run that through facial rec. We've got a new player in the game, and I want to know exactly who he is.” Riley nods, and Matty stares at the screen.  _ Okay, Murdoc, who wants you dead? _

* * *

Mac’s spent his fair share of time in libraries.  _ I didn’t really do the whole college thing, aside from those few night classes, but you can learn a lot in a library. _ Although right now he’s not really looking for advanced quantum physics or biochemistry books.  _ I’m looking for some slightly more immediate life saving knowledge. _

They’re getting some odd looks from the people inside. His coat is draped over Murdoc’s wrists to hide the cuffs, but he can tell the man still gives people an instinctive horror. People move away from them, and he noticed one of the librarians giving them a very concerned stare.  _ We need to get moving before they call someone.  _ He doubts they will, but people are on edge with all the shootings in public places lately, and he can’t bank on them not turning Murdoc and everyone with him in to the cops. 

He can see a woman texting in between one of the stacks, and people are using the computers clearly online. “Okay, looks like cell service is back up. We need to let the Phoenix know we're still alive.”

“Why don't you just kill that nice woman and steal her cell phone?” Murdoc asks. 

“No.” Mac glares at him.  _ He’s doing this on purpose. Pushing our buttons, getting us riled up. He likes it. _

“Fine. I don't know how you two get anything accomplished.”

“We're in a public library. We don't need a phone.” Mac walks up to the librarians’ desk. “Excuse me, can I get a visitor’s pass for the computers?” The woman nods and hands him a slip of paper. 

“It’s ten cents a copy to print, twenty for color. First three pages are free, though.” She smiles, twisting the layard her nametag is on, and Mac realizes she probably thinks he’s attractive. 

“Um, thanks.” He grabs the paper and walks to the bank of computers, finding one that’s far away from most of the other users. He logs in, then starts initiating the secure site protocols for external logins to the Phoenix network. 

He starts a videochat to the War Room’s linkup, and it’s great to see Matty, Bozer, and Riley pop up on screen. 

“Hey, guys.”

“Mac, Jack. It's a big relief to see you. I'm sending you new exfil coordinates. A team should be there in four hours.” Mac watches a small box pop up onscreen with the latitude and longitude in it, and he quickly pencils it down on the back of the visitor’s pass paper. 

“Okay, good. We'll lay low.” Mac looks around them, but no one seems to be paying any attention to them now. One of the kids logged on is playing a video game that’s audible even through his headphones, and the others all seem equally absorbed. 

Murdoc leans in toward the screen. “Matty. Hi! I just want to say how nice it is seeing you again.”

“Shut it, Pennywise. The adults are talking.”

“Did you guys get my video?” Mac asks. 

“We did,” Bozer mutters. “But we didn't get any hits on facial rec. Well, no viable ones, your guy bears a strong resemblance to an aging rock and roll artist, but I doubt he’s turned hit man.” 

“Maybe Murdoc knows him,” Jack suggests. “Send us the photo.” 

The image pops up onscreen, and Murdoc immediately begins to chuckle. “Oh! This is gonna be fun.”

Jack sighs. “Matty, I think we're in business. Our psycho recognizes your psycho.” He turns to Murdoc, who’s still laughing quietly. “Okay, who is this guy? Why does he want you dead?” 

“This is Nicholas Helman.” Murdoc says the name almost reverently. 

“Is that name supposed to mean something?” Jack asks. 

“Means you might as well start digging three graves because  _ that's _ the man who trained me. He taught me everything I know.” Murdoc raises an eyebrow, looking directly at Mac. “You think I'm bad? Oh, you ain't seen nothing yet.”

Mac shudders. But still, he’d almost rather be facing down their mystery assassin than wandering around with Murdoc. Murdoc keeps brushing up against him, trying to get his hands where they have no business being. Jack’s trying to keep some distance, but that’s been difficult to do when half their time is spent hiding around corners and in tight spaces. 

Jack looks up at the doors. “Okay, let’s go.” Several people are watching them carefully now. Mac keeps his head down passing the desk, even when he hears the librarian who gave him the computer pass wish them a good afternoon. 

It’s starting to snow when they step outside. Mac snatches his coat back from Murdoc, tugging it over his shoulder  Jack nods to an older green Dodge Grand Caravan in the parking lot. “Hey, think you can get us that one, kiddo?”

“Oooh, we’re going to steal a car? Color me impressed,” Murdoc says. Mac pops the door lock with his knife and then starts hotwiring the van, it’s old enough to do that. “The blond boy scout breaking the law, I love this!”

“Shut up before I break your  _ jaw _ ,” Jack hisses. The van starts with a growl, and Mac climbs into the driver’s seat. Jack pushes Murdoc into the backseat and then climbs in. “Okay, let’s go meet exfil.” 

* * *

A road trip with Angus and Papa Bear Jack is turning out to be almost as much fun as Murdoc’s always imagined. Granted, he’d rather not be in cuffs in the back seat,  _ that’s MacGyver’s spot, _ but he is enjoying watching Jack go fiercely protective every time Murdoc so much as insinuates anything. Jack is frustrated, and that’s incredibly fun to watch.  _ Almost as much fun as watching Angus writhe and beg. _

“Okay, so, what's the deal with this guy hunting you? There's got to be a good reason he wants you dead so badly.”

Murdoc smiles, just a little.  _ Oooh, story time.  _ “It's quite sad, actually.”

“Is it?”

“Helman and I were on a job together, taking out a senator's kids with a car bomb. Standard stuff, really.” Dalton’s reactions to any time he says things like that are  _ priceless. _ “Helman was under the car securing the device, when the children came out early. Now, this was a high-paying gig. I didn't want to blow the paycheck, so I blew the explosives.” He can’t help the small laugh that slips out, not only do they seem to be taking his bait, but also he really did come so close to doing just this exact thing once. Some days he wishes he’d have given in to that urge to flip the switch. “Helman was horrifically burned over 75% of his body. It's a miracle he survived. I mean, you saw him, you’ve got to admit the guy has got a face for telethons.”

Angus laughs hollowly. “You know, we'd have better luck stopping him if you told us the truth.” 

“The truth is irrelevant, MacGyver. Helman wants us dead, we're dead.” He looks up to see Angus’s blue eyes, hard with anger and worry, reflected in the rearview mirror. “But I can't say no to that  _ face _ , Angus.” He loves the way the boy shivers.  _ I hope he’s thinking about those parting gifts I left at that warehouse.  _ He looks down at the handcuffs and then back to where MacGyver is holding the steering wheel.  _ Oh, I would so love to put these on him. _ “So here it is, the big truth. Fresh out of high school, I wanted nothing more than to join the United States Army. They wouldn't have me.”

“Oh, imagine that.” Jack says sarcastically.  _ Oh Dalton. Always here for the blunt attempts at humor. _ Truly, the amount of times the man uses sarcasm to cover up genuine discomfort is amazing. 

“Something about hazardous behavior and severe psychological disturbances?” 

“Oh, I'm shocked.”  _ And there’s the sarcasm again. No originality, Jack. _

“Right? So, hopped the first flight out of the good old U.S. of A. Joined the first army that would have me.”

Angus glances at him in the rearview mirror for just a second, then looks away, shuddering. “You joined a foreign military? I'm pretty sure that's treason.”

“Says the man who was arrested for terrorism,” Murdoc says, and relishes the pain on MacGyver’s face.  _ What happened at Christmas must have reopened all those old wounds. _ He’d been looking forward to showing up at MacGyver’s house then, taking advantage of Angus’s fear and vulnerability to remind him of exactly what his last experience behind bars was like, but then that pesky Deborah had to go and spoil it all.  _ Next time, I’ll shoot her in the head. Make it quick. I would prefer she suffer a little, but I can’t have her ruining my time with Angus again. _ “See, I had a burgeoning interest in shooting people. My new friends were willing to indulge me. See, what the U. S. saw as a problem, my new friends saw as a gift. So they sent me to train with Helman.”

“Why don't you fast-forward to the part where he wants to put your dumb ass in the ground?” Jack asks. Clearly he wants Murdoc to stop talking.  _ Oh Jack, I’m just getting started. _

“I can think of two possible reasons. One: I stiffed the guy on a bill at a diner in Lisbon. Still owe him twelve euros.” Murdoc pauses. “Or two: I murdered his wife right in front of him. Probably the second one, huh?”

“Safe bet.” Dalton looks both disgusted and confused. “So what happened?” 

“Well, after Helman had trained me, the country we'd sworn allegiance to ceased to exist, so we went to work for some very, very bad people. Until one day, Helman met this woman and he  _ fell in love _ and decided he wanted to quit the biz.” That part’s never made much sense to him.  _ The only part of marriage I ever understood was that you were supposed to be partners. She should have made him better at his job, not pulled him away from it.  _ “See, this isn't exactly the kind of job you just turn in your two weeks' notice.” 

“So they sent you in to kill him,” MacGyver says. 

Murdoc nods. “Remember when I said Helman was better than me?” 

“Let me guess you tried to kill him, missed, killed her instead, and he's been chasing you ever since.”

Murdoc laughs. “Ten points for Gryffindor, Angus! Whoo-hoo! Yeah, see, that's why I've never stayed in the same place for long I always figured Helman would catch up and make good on his promise to end me. Looks like today's the day!” 

“No, it’s not,” Jack says.

“Oh really?” Murdoc smiles.

“No. I’m keeping you alive so I can kill you myself, you creep. Helman better get in line.” Jack emphasizes his words with a shake of his gun. “Believe me, I want nothing more than to put some lead in you and leave you on the side of the road with a bow, gift-wrapped for your equally psycho mentor. So don’t push me.” 

* * *

Riley’s still trying to get sat views on the area Mac and Jack must be in now. But the chairs in the Situation Room are incredibly uncomfortable. She’s moving back to her familiar seat in the War Room that Jack always jokes has molded to her body at this point. 

She walks in the door and then stops. It’s not just Matty who turns around from the screen to face her. Patty’s there too. 

“Riley? What’s your status?” 

“Sat feeds are still corrupted. I’m rewriting the transmission algorithms now but they’re taking some time to upload.”

“Then we have some time to talk.”  _ Oh shit. _ It can’t be good if both Patty and Matty want to talk to her.  _ This has to be about Diane. I blew it.  _ Even the time Diane got kidnapped to blackmail Riley wasn’t this awful.  _ At least then she never knew I was involved. The kidnappers only spoke Chinese around her, and she was blindfolded so she didn’t recognize me and Jack in the tac team that rescued her.  _

“I’m sorry it’s not faster, but I swear I’m as worried…”

“This isn’t about the op.” Patty sighs. “It’s about your mother.” 

Riley knows a Phoenix team brought Diane in after the Fletcher incident. But she hasn’t been down to holding to see her. She still can’t think of a single thing to say. She can’t bear to see the look on her mother’s face when she finds out how many lies Riley’s accumulated.  _ Everything she knows about me, everything she thinks she knows. It’s all fake.  _

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know that anything was going to happen. But I shouldn’t have brought her into this world, and I’m sorry. Whatever repercussions there are, it’s on me.” She has no idea what her punishment is going to be for exposing the agency to a civilian, however innocently.  _ They made an exception for Bozer’s case. But I have no right to ask for one. Mac wasn’t even really an agent then, he didn’t have to know better. I should have. _

“Believe me, there will be a conversation, at length, about the advisability of close civilian contact.” Patty smiles slightly. “But for now, I think your mother deserves the truth.” 

“You’re going to tell her?”

“The alternative is leaving her to make up her own idea of what we are, and frankly that’s not something I want to deal with.” 

“I’ll take point,” Matty says. “If you don’t mind the observation, I do tend to be less intimidating.” Patty nods.  _ Not by much, but she’s right.  _ Patty’s probably actually the bigger pushover, in Riley’s experience, but she has the Ice Queen facade that’s hard to get past. Matty can turn on the likeable charm pretty readily.  __

It’s a quiet elevator ride down to holding. Riley moves to stand next to her as Matty walks into the saferoom.  _ Everything that I’ve done, all the bombs I’ve defused, bioweapons I’ve stopped, and the most terrifying thing in my espionage career is going to be walking into that room and letting my mom know that what she’s hearing from Matty is the truth.  _

“Riley.” Patty says quietly. “You’re going to be fine.” 

She nods. “I know. But…”

“We don’t train you to tell the truth. We train you to lie, and keep lying. To do it for so long you start to forget what the truth really was in the first place.” There’s a sadness in Patty’s voice. “Family is never supposed to be involved in this.”  _ I know nothing about her family. Parents, siblings, anyone she ever fell in love with… _

“Why did you bring her in?”

“Because I don’t want you to have to walk away.”  _ Like you had to. _ Riley knows, then, as surely as she knows anything, that the reason Patty never talks about her family is because to them, she’s no more than a memory. And they’re the same for her.  _ She gave up everything for this job. _ Riley’s seen the files. Or rather the lack of them. Outside the Phoenix, Patricia Thornton doesn’t exist. 

Riley doesn’t want that to be her. But whether it needs to be or not depends on the conversation happening in the room in front of her. Matty still has her comms live, and Riley switches hers on.  _ I have to know how bad an explosion I’m walking into. It’s just a tactical move. _

“I’d like to know why I’m in this room. And more of an answer than ‘it’s for your protection’.” Diane sounds angry, and confused, and a bit frightened. But she’s keeping it together better than Riley would have expected. 

“What happened at MacGyver's house was very serious and should not be taken lightly.”

“And that much was very clear.”

“I recognize that this is a lot to take in, and I'm sure that you have questions.”

“Riley tells me those are things better left unsaid.” Diane says. “And I believe she insists on that for a good reason.” There’s equal amounts of bitterness and trust in her voice. 

“Well, I believe that at this point, it's more dangerous to leave you with questions than to cue you in on exactly what goes on here.” Matty’s voice is the soft calm one she uses with assets they’re bringing in from serious situations. “When your daughter joined the clandestine services, we ran a background check on you, just to be safe. Which means that I can trust you with the information I'm about to share. To the outside world, the Phoenix Foundation is just a think tank. But behind these walls, we are a U. S. intelligence agency tasked with taking down enemies of the state, stopping acts of terrorism, and saving lives all around the world wherever they are imperiled.”

“So this is where my daughter works.” Diane sighs. 

Matty nods. “Yes, sometimes. And sometimes she's out in the field.”

“The field?” 

“Riley is a covert operative, part of an elite team.”

“So my daughter's a spy with the U. S. government who puts her life at risk all over the world?”

“To save the world. Riley has stopped dozens of terrorist attacks, bombings, information leaks, and killers.” Matty smiles, Riley can almost see the maternal pride on her face.  _ She’s always felt like a second mother, even when we’ve been at odds. _

“Is that what she’s doing now?” Diane asks. 

“Actually, she’s right outside that door.” Patty swipes her card key and opens the lock, then pushes the door open, walking in ahead of Riley. Riley’s rarely been more grateful for a first line of defense. 

“I don’t believe we’ve officially met. I’m Patricia Thornton, Oversight of the Phoenix Foundation.” Patty extends her hand.

Matty stands up. “Matilda Webber, Phoenix Foundation Operations Director.”  

Riley swallows, then steps up beside the others. “Riley Davis. Phoenix Foundation Covert Operations Agent, Level Six.” Diane slowly takes her hand. 

“Level Six. Is that a good thing?” Diane’s voice is forced, choked. 

“Very good. She’s the youngest Level Six in the agency history.” Patty smiles. “You should be very proud of your daughter.”

“I already am.” 

Patty and Matty step out, checking in on the situation upstairs, and now Riley’s alone in the saferoom with her mother. It’s somehow not as terrible as she was afraid it could be. Diane’s at least being reasonable and not freaking out. At least not badly.

She pulls out the chair across the table from her mom and sits down, leaning her elbows on the polished metal. One of the hallway guards brings them both a cafeteria lunch and a bottle of water, but Riley can’t even touch her salad or sandwich. She’s not hungry.  _ I can’t feel comfortable until we get this all worked out. _

Diane takes a drink of her own water, then sets it down and looks directly at Riley. “So all this time, you’ve been working for this ‘Phoenix Foundation’?”

“Well, not always here. I started out with the CIA. They recruited me right after I graduated.” _ More like basically arrested me and offered me an out that didn’t lead to prison time. _

“So the whole programming internship in Washington was a lie?”

“Well, I was in the DC area, and I was working with computers, but...that was training. Like spy boot camp.” Riley fiddles with the bracelets on her wrist. 

“And the job with the tile company…” She shakes her head. “I always knew something wasn’t quite right. And...I’m almost afraid to ask about Jack.”

“He’s part of the team I’m on. He was my handler when I first joined, and he’s still mentoring me.” She decides not to bring up the other failed attempts at finding her a partner. “You know, that time he ditched you on that date?” Diane nods. “We were in Cairo. We almost died. He felt horrible about it for so long. Probably still does.” 

Diane frowns. “You told me that was a mugging.” 

“I had to.” Riley’s fingers move to her neck. Sometimes at night she still feels the hands closing around her throat.  _ Closest I came to dying on this job was laying on the floor of that warehouse. _ Jack hovered for weeks. 

“And the black eyes and the split lips you couldn’t hide, and the times you came home with casts and braces…”  _ I explained them all away. Rock climbing accident. Fell off a bike. I knew how to tell a good fake a long time before spy school ever told me how to come up with more believable stories than “I got hit by a door”.  _ She’d tried to avoid Mom when she was injured, but it didn’t always work out. “I was so afraid it was Nick, but you promised he would never hurt you. And I did try to trust you. But all that time, you were almost dying halfway around the world.” 

“It certainly wasn’t the first time I had to lie about where I got bruises.” She shakes her head. “It’s my nature, I guess. To protect the people I love by keeping secrets.”

“And as much my fault as yours.” Diane sighs. “You grew up surrounded by lies that were meant to protect you. I guess it makes sense that you ended up doing it for a living.” 

“I’m so sorry.” Riley looks down at her hands. “I hope you can forgive me.”

“Oh baby girl, I already have.” 

* * *

Jack’s usually a big fan of the great American road trip. But right now all he wants to do is get out of this car and put about ten feet of concrete between himself and Captain Chaos.  _ Shooting him is becoming a more and more appealing idea. We’d get him off our hands and Helman might stop looking for us.  _ Or he might be really pissed at whoever stole his revenge. 

It doesn’t help that Murdoc is continuing to aggravate him. “Ooh. I spy with my little eye something red.” He clicks his tongue. “I’m waiting, boys. No takers? Hmm. Ooh, how about 20 questions?”  _ I hate that game anyway, after Mac used Schrodinger’s cat and said it was both alive and dead. That’s not how the rules are supposed to work.  _ “Ooh, the alphabet game.” 

“Okay, it begins with a B and it’s about to penetrate your skull.” Jack really wants to put a gag on this guy, but that would require putting his gun down. He trusts Murdoc less than he would a rabid dog.  _ I don’t wanna take my gun off him for a second, and I don’t want to be near him any longer than necessary.  _ And he’s not about to let Mac get that close to Murdoc either. 

“Jack, you know that’s outside the rules. Are we there yet?” 

“Shut up.”

“I suppose a pee-pee break's out of the question.”

“Shut up!” 

“Hey. Just ignore him. You were saying?” Mac looks like he’s having a hard time following his own advice. His hands are clenched tight around the steering wheel, he’s been having to let go and shake them one at a time every few minutes because he’s probably holding on so hard he’s putting his fingers to sleep.  _ That can’t feel good on his hands.  _ Jack can tell the kid’s still tender skin is all cut up and raw. He washed out the gashes in a bathroom at the library, but they don’t really have the supplies on hand to properly bandage them.  _ He’d better not get an infection after all the work we did to avoid that. _

“About what?” Jack genuinely doesn’t remember what he was talking about. 

“Lightsabers. I don’t know why you’re still trying to convince me we need one.”

“Dude. Seriously. Today is the prime example, right there.”

“You’re going to go up against a hitman with a shotgun, waving around a glorified laser pointer?” Mac chuckles. 

Jack pulls out his best Obi-Wan Kenobi imitation. “A more elegant weapon, of a more civilized age.” 

“Yeah, and isn’t it Han that says it’s no match for a good blaster at your side?”

“So invent that!” Jack chuckles. “Then I wouldn’t have to worry about running out of mags.” He’s feeling uncomfortably light on ammo right now, there’s half a mag in his sidearm and one still in his tac belt. 

“You know there would still have to be a power source. It’s completely unrealistic that that kind of weapon wouldn’t need some kind of charge that would get depleted.”

“Are you really gonna rip apart  _ Star Wars _ again?” Jack shakes his head. “Dude, you’re worse than those YouTube channels that are like ‘Everything wrong with this movie in ten minutes”.” He shakes his head. “How did you ever share space with a wanna-be hollywood filmmaker?”

“I will have you know that Bozer has the most scientifically accurate scripts in the business.”  _ I can only imagine your editing process. _ Poor Bozer probably had to watch half his ideas hit Mac’s cutting room floor because it wasn’t following the laws of physics.  _ It’s a wonder he hasn’t snapped. _

“That’s probably why he can’t  _ sell _ them, dude. People don’t want scientific accuracy, they want  _ cool. _ ”

“Science is cool!” Mac insists, giving him an insulted glare. 

Apparently Murdoc feels left out, because he suddenly starts singing, loudly and surprisingly not terribly off key. “Home, home on the range. Where the deer…” 

“Can I shoot him?” 

“No.” Mac doesn’t sound very sure though.  _ Best thing for everyone is to put one right between that psycho’s eyes.  _

“I know I don't have that many bullets left, but I guarantee he'll stop singing before I use 'em all.”

“He's trying to get a rise out of you.” Mac sighs. 

“I could pistol-whip him, huh? How about a pistol-whip, huh?” 

Murdoc simply continues like the conversation in front of him is totally irrelevant to his continued existence. “A discourag... 

“How about a good pistol-whip?”

“Well, if you don’t like that song, I know more. How about this?” Murdoc says, then starts singing again, this time a haunting sounding song that sends a chill down Jack’s spine. “Baba Yaga, come at night, little children…”

“Shut up!” Jack waves his gun in Murdoc’s direction. “Or you’re gonna lose a whole lot of teeth.” Murdoc, thankfully, stops singing.  _ Geez, that song was actually creepier than Home on the Range. _ Jack didn’t think anything could top that, but a twisted lullaby about a witch who eats children is just sick. “See? That's better. Everything's gonna be fine.” 

Mac glances up at a billboard next to the highway. “Actually, things just got a whole lot worse.”

“What?” This is not something Jack wants to hear right now. 

“AMBER Alert. That's us.” 

“How…” Sure, they stole a car, but they didn’t kidnap a child. Not even if Murdoc insists on behaving like a petulant one.  _ I checked to be sure there wasn’t a car seat inside before I told Mac to steal this one. _ Just in case. 

“Helman must've called it in. Ooh-hoo, the old man's still got it.” Murdoc grins. “He’s on our scent now, boys.” 

“We're not gonna make it to exfil. We need some help.” Mac glances around, then pulls into a run down service station beside the road. The place is falling apart, clearly abandoned, but there is an old pay phone outside. 

Unfortunately, there’s no receiver attached to the frayed end of the cord. Jack shakes his head, glancing around as the winter wind sends scraps of paper and dead leaves skittering over the concrete. He’s jumpy, and Murdoc isn’t helping things, the way his eyes are fixed on Mac as the kid paces back and forth. “What now? You want me to catch a pigeon?” Jack asks. 

“Actually, I can fix this.” Mac looks up suddenly, then rushes over and pulls the van’s door open, starting to remove part of the inside.  _ Whatever you say, kiddo. _

“I actually tried raising pigeons once,” Murdoc says.

“Shut up.” 

“What? It was when I was a boy.”

Jack shakes his head. “If you want to talk just to hear yourself speak, Twisted Sister, go right ahead. Doesn't mean I have to listen.”

“Columba livia domestica. Hey, did you know that the domestic pigeon, unlike our dear darling Jack Dalton, is actually considered a highly intelligent creature? That's absolutely true.

No, no, no, I trained them to fly up to great altitudes, and then they'd swoop down into their cages.”  _ Why do I feel like this isn’t going to be a cutesy story for the kids?  _ “And once they mastered that, I started tying these little M-80 firecrackers to their legs and...kbshhhh.” He wiggles his hands as much as is possible in the cuffs, laughing. 

“What's the matter with you?” Jack feels like that’s a question that answering might take until they get back the Phoenix.  _ He’s so messed up he makes guys like Walsh look like altar boys. _

“You like things that go boom. I thought you'd like that story.”

“Hey, Mac.”

“Almost…” Mac’s partly bent over, twisting wires from the phone to the car’s speakers that he pulled out, and Murdoc’s eyes are in a place Jack doesn’t like. 

“No, no, no, man, forget the phone. Let me just kill him right here. I'll make it quick.”  _ There’s really no reason not to. _ Mac would be mad for a while, but he’d get over it.

“Oh, I'm done.” Mac holds up the makeshift receiver. 

“Whoo!” Murdoc chuckles. “Never gets old, watching you, Angus. It's so damned impressive.” Mac turns back to the phone and starts dialing the Phoenix line, then enters the code to access the secure phone system from an outside call. 

Matty picks up on the first ring. “Mac, please tell me this is you.”

“Hey, Matty. We are on Route 65, mile 13, and we hit a bit of a snag. Helman just called in an AMBER Alert on our vehicle. We're gonna try and find another one, but we're in the middle of nowhere. Can exfil come to us?” 

“Yeah. Sit tight. I'll have a chopper there in…” 

Riley’s voice cuts in. “Guys, I got satellite back up. And there’s a cop car coming in hot. Based on his roof markings, this cop's way out of his jurisdiction.”

Murdoc smiles. “Of course he is. The driver's the opposite of law enforcement, my dear Riley. Helman has a penchant for stealing emergency vehicles.”

Jack groans. “This just keeps getting worse and worse. Let me tell you something: we ain't outrunning no cop car in that pregnant roller skate.” Mac bites his lip, looking around. And then a train whistle blows and Jack hears the clatter of cars on a track. Mac’s got his ‘you probably won’t like this idea but it’s all I’ve got’ face going on. “Maybe we don't have to.”

“You wanna hop a train going full speed?”

“It’s probably better odds than waiting for Helman.”

“We could just hole up in here, ambush him when he shows up to check out the vehicle,” Jack says.  _ Kids used to dare each other to jump on trains back home in Texas when I was growing up. Some lost limbs. They were the lucky ones.  _ Three kids in Jack’s senior class never made it to graduation. 

“That’s exactly what Helman wants,” Murdoc suggests. “He’ll anticipate that. And I guarantee you he’d just love to toss a couple Molotov cocktails through those windows and pick us off one by one when we came out the door.” He grins. “Like dear little Angus here, Helman is quite fond of things that catch fire.” 

“Why should I believe you?” 

“Because I want to live long enough to…”

“You say anything about Mac and I blow you away right here right now,” Jack growls. “Okay, Mac. Let’s go catch that train.” 

* * *

Matty glances up at the screen as Riley pulls up her restored sat views. “Okay. Keep tracking Mac and Jack, and start scanning for the chemical tag on that money.” Patty’s  hand-picked tac team are standing by to deploy when Riley gets a location.  _ We’re not taking chances with a bunch of people Murdoc thought should be in the same room.  _

“On it.” Riley continues typing, then looks up. “Hey, guys, I got an incoming switchboard patch from a caller who claims to be Nicholas Helman.”

“Put it on speaker.” Matty frowns. 

“Okay.” Riley tosses it to the main screen and switches over the volume. 

“This is Director Matilda Webber. To whom am I speaking?” 

The voice on the other end is gravely, but there’s a menacing hiss to the words as well. “By now, I think you know exactly to whom you're speaking. You're in charge?” 

“That's right.”

“Oh, good. I have an offer.”  _ I can see that he trained Murdoc. _ Matty recognizes some of the mannerisms, although this man has a sinister seriousness that contrasts sharply with Murdoc’s almost carefree and playful attitude. “Your two agents have no idea what they're stepping into the middle of. So here's my proposal: you give me Dennis, and I'll let them live.”

“Dennis?” 

“Well, you might know him as Murdoc. But it doesn't matter what is on his tombstone, because there will be a tombstone real soon. The only question is, will there be three?” The call ends. Matty turns to Riley. 

“I only got a partial trace. He’s near the last location Mac gave us for exfil.” Matty sighs. She’s rerouted Stevens and his team multiple times today. And the last she heard, Mac and Jack weren’t even going to make it to the most recent exfil plan. Riley’s sat view showed them heading for a passing train with Murdoc in tow, and it appears they succeeded in getting on. Riley’s tracking the train, but that’s still not good enough for Matty.

“Riley, do you have any way of getting in touch with them?”

“No. Even though I got the sat feeds up again, their comms are totally fried. And neither of them have their cell phones anymore.” Riley’s still following the train. “If they stay on this train, it’ll bring them to a station in L.A.”

“Have a team standing by to intercept them there. And keep watching.” Riley nods. “You’re still tracking Helman’s car?”

“Yes. He turned off all the location devices in it, but I’m scanning sat feeds for the roof number. Unless he realizes we’re watching and switches cars, we have visual on him too.” Riley slides that image onto the screen. Helman’s car is stopped at the service station where the stolen car Mac and Jack were in is parked. A black dot that must be Helman is pacing back and forth. He stops where there appears to be a line of tracks in the snow and looks toward the railroad tracks, then climbs back into his car.

_ He just figured out their plan. And his car can go much faster than a train. _ Matty twists a strand of her hair around her fingers, so hard the pull on her scalp is painful.  _ He’s tracking them and we have no way of warning them.  _

* * *

SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDWEST

PROBABLY KANSAS

“Cold, Angus?” Murdoc asks. Mac tries to stop shivering, crossing his arms tightly over his chest, but there’s no heat in the train car and a blizzard blowing outside. Snow keeps sifting through the seams and through the crack in the door they left open to let in light. Neither Mac or Jack was comfortable being in here in the dark with Murdoc, even if Jack did tie him securely to a support rail. “You know, I’m quite willing to help with that. Shared body heat and all. Of course, they say it works best with skin to skin contact…”

“Keep it up and the only skin you’ll be feeling will be my knuckles contacting your cheek,” Jack snaps. Mac jumps, he didn’t realize Jack was close enough to hear that. “Mac, you think I’ll get frostbite if I use my socks to make a gag?”

“Possibly.” Mac shrugs. 

“Mac, please, let me shoot him. Just a kneecap. Come on, dude.” Jack sighs. “I don’t like sitting here on this literal crazy train watching him. Do we even know where this tin can is going?” 

Mac glances toward the cargo inside. “According to the manifest on those crates there, we’re bound for the Port of Los Angeles. So without getting into a literal junior high math problem, about eighteen hours.”

“Yeah, as long as Helman doesn't factor into the equation.” Jack sighs. “Mac, I don’t know if I can take eighteen hours in here with him. At least let me break his jaw so he can’t say anything else.” 

“I know. I don’t if I can take it either. But I don’t like the idea of doing something like that,” Mac whispers.  _ If we injure him in cold blood, we’re doing the same thing he does. _ “Murdoc wants to see us snap. If we don’t give him what he wants, that’s the best revenge. Right?”

“You shouldn’t have to stand here and listen to him. I’m gonna make a gag right now.” Jack sits down and starts pulling off a boot. 

“Wait.” Mac turns around, looking back at Murdoc leaning against the wall.  _ He can’t hurt me now. And if I keep letting him and what he says control me, then I’m letting him win. _ He has to look this monster in the face and tell him he doesn’t get to ruin his life anymore.  _ Maybe then I can finally sleep at night and not see him there. _

“Well, this  _ is _ an unexpected pleasure,” Murdoc says as Mac walks over. “Come to take me up on my offer, have we?”

“Murdoc…” Jack snarls.

“Jack. Please.” Mac holds up his hand. 

“Oh, thank you. Papa Bear’s growling does get old after a while.”

“I don’t need him to protect me from you.” Mac says sharply. “You can’t hurt me now, and where you’re going you’ll never be able to again.”

Murdoc just laughs. “Oh, so naive, Angus. How precious. Don’t you dream of me? Oh, please, tell me there’ve been some good ones.”

“If you mean the ones where I slam a cell door in your face and walk away, then yes.” Mac smiles slightly. “No matter what you say now, no matter what you dream of while you’re there by yourself for the rest of your life, I’m going to be free.” 

“You know, I almost wish I’d been caught before Jack and his friends got you let out of prison. I would have absolutely  _ loved _ to be your cellmate. How about it, Angus? The only way you’re going to be able to keep me behind bars is if you give me a reason to stay there. Would you sacrifice yourself to keep the world safe from me?”

“I won’t have to.” Mac glances at Jack. “Or isn’t knowing there are at least five people who are very willing to shoot you on sight if you put a toe out of line a good enough incentive?”

“Oooh I like this!” Murdoc smiles. “The puppy has teeth now.”  _ Riley likes to say when people call her a bitch she holds her head a little higher and calls it a compliment, because all they’re saying is she’s a she-wolf and wolves have teeth and claws. _

“I’m not afraid of you.” Mac stares directly into Murdoc’s eyes. “Why should I be? I’ve beaten you twice now.” He turns around, walking back to Jack.  _ I get to end this conversation whenever I want. I can walk away when I say. _

“You good, kid?” Jack asks quietly when Mac joins him by the door. “That was pretty impressive. Guess I’m rubbing off on you, huh?”

Mac just nods. He wants to think about something else now. “Are you hungry? There’s three cases of baked beans over here and I think I can make a heater with some of this other stuff.” He cuts open the packaging and holds up one of the cans.

“Um...I’ll pass.” Jack grimaces. “Believe me, you don’t want to spend eighteen hours in here with me after I’ve eaten those.” 

“Good point.” Mac shrugs.

“Oh, if he doesn't want the beans, can I have them, MacGyver?” Murdoc asks. Mac frowns at him. “What? They look like delicious beans.”

“Knock yourself out.” Mac tosses the unopened can to him. 

“You realize you just gave him a weapon, don't you?” Jack asks.  

Mac grins. “You’ve spent way too much time around me, haven’t you?”  _ I definitely could have turned that into a weapon. _ Murdoc, on the other hand, seems to be struggling to figure out how to open the can without the correct tools. 

“Maybe, kiddo.” Jack smiles. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Sure, what?” Mac leans against a crate. 

“I know this is really random, but…” Jack swipes a hand over his face, he looks as nervous as Mac’s ever seen him. “I just really need an outside perspective on this, and Riley is  _ not _ an impartial judge. And I can’t take my personal life to Matty, obviously.” Mac frowns.  _ What is this? _ “It’s Diane. Mac, do you think we really have a shot at this?”

“It looked like she was having fun at the party. And she’s talking to you after Christmas, so that’s good.”

“Well, she might not still be talking to me. She was real freaked out.”

“If she’s anything like Riley, she’s tough. She’ll get past it eventually. Maybe a little of the truth wouldn’t hurt.”

“That’s the problem, man. I can’t tell her the truth. That’s why we broke up in the first place. This business...it’s dangerous, and there’s just too many lies. Relationships can’t work out with that many secrets in them.” Jack blinks, his voice is a little hoarse. Like he’s getting emotional. “Guys in our line of work, we don’t get the fairy tale ending.” 

Mac nods. “When I first became a vigilante, I promised myself I’d never date. I didn’t want to put someone else at risk by being associated with me.”

“Think you made the right choice?”  _ Probably. But I can’t say for sure. _ There was a lot of other issues mixed up in that choice as well.  _ Residual abandonment issues don’t exactly go well with future relationships. _ He didn’t want to commit to something that the other person wasn’t just as invested in.  _ I wasn’t going to have someone else walk away from me. _ And now…  _ I can’t give someone everything they’d want. I’m better off sticking with the friends who became my family.  _

“Yeah. But that was  _ my _ right choice. Doesn’t mean it has to be yours too.” 

* * *

Jack’s about to give in and ask Mac what his plan is for making a heater for those beans, when the train screeches suddenly and begins to slow down. There’s a thud, and Jack turns around to see that Murdoc has dropped the can he still hasn’t managed to open. 

“Do you mind? The beans.” Murdoc says, nodding toward the can rolling across the floor. Jack starts to bend and pick them up reflexively, then frowns. Mac’s looking out the door with concern. “Wait a second. There’s nothing around here. Why are we slowing down?”

Jack looks out the door, and sees a lone patrol car up ahead, lights flashing, near the railroad crossing with a road that cuts through this middle-of-nowhere area. 

“Because he found us, that's why.” Jack frowns. 

Mac turns toward him as the train whistle blows loudly. “Well, we can't stay here. Let's go.” Jack unties Murdoc from the support beam and drags him to the door.

“Can I have my can of beans?” 

“Your b...fine.” Jack picks up the can and holds it out.

“ _ Thank _ you.” Jack grins and then tosses the can out the door. 

“Fetch.” He shoves murdoc out into the snow, then jumps off after him. He hears a soft groan as Mac hits the ground, the poor kid’s probably awfully bruised from the helicopter explosion and his ankle’s still been giving him problems. 

Jack pulls Murdoc up, and Mac struggles to his feet and follows them, limping slightly,as they run toward what looks like yet another abandoned warehouse.  _ This is getting old _ . 

Jack sees lights flashing through the flying snow as the police car gets closer. “Well, so much for getting off that train before he spotted us.”

“More good news. We can't get in.” Mac is tugging on a chain padlocked to the door. “We can’t bust a window, there’s grating on the inside on the bottom levels, and the panes are too small anyway.” 

“Well, I can shoot it off there, but I think I better save some ammo for the Terminator.” 

“No-no-no, I-I can get through this.” Mac’s teeth are chattering, and the fingers fumbling with the padlock look scarily blue. Jack’s none too warm himself, but he’s got a little insulation, as he likes to put it. A much-too-skinny kid like Mac is going to feel the cold a lot more. “It's l-low-grade st-steel. I just need a p-piece of, uh, heavy-duty, high-c-c-carbon steel.” He glances at the handcuffs around Murdoc’s wrists, and Murdoc grins widely.  

“All yours, MacGyver.”

“Don't do this.” Jack cannot believe they’re about to take off the one restraint Murdoc has on him.  _ This can’t be happening. What is he thinking? _ Mac of all people insisting on taking Murdoc’s cuffs off feels  _ wrong. _

“G-get 'em off him.” Mac is still struggling with the door, now shivering so hard he’s almost vibrating. 

“If there was a contest for all-time worst ideas, this wins the blue ribbon.” Jack unlocks the cuffs, and Murdoc’s grin gets even bigger. 

“We d-don't have a ch-choice.” 

“Ditch that creepy smile,” Jack growls. He can only imagine what’s going on in Murdoc’s head. Mac takes the cuffs, threads them through the chain, and then snaps it. “Got it!” They’re not a second too soon, because just as Mac shoves the door open, bullets begin to ping off the walls around them. Jack turns and fires off the last of the mag in his gun as cover, as Mac and Murdoc run to crouch behind an old dumpster. Jack doesn’t dare leave those two alone together, and he drops the spent mag and slams a new one in as he runs across the room and skids down, rolling behind the dumpster. 

He’s half afraid of finding Murdoc with his hands around Mac’s throat or otherwise in very much the wrong place. But Mac is alone behind the dumpster, panting but apparently uninjured. “Murdoc! Where is he?”

“I-I don't know.” Mac’s eyes are wide and scared. 

“You don't know? There's not one, but two psychopathic killers on the loose. You just had to let him go.” Jack can’t believe they actually did that.  _ I knew that was gonna come back and bite us in the ass.  _

“Yeah, you were right. All-time worst idea ever.” Mac pants, glancing toward the door. 

“Well, let’s  go get him back.” There’s a door on the far side of the room, swinging slightly like someone just ran through it. “I’ll cover us, that way,” Jack says, nodding to the door. He stands up and fires toward where a dark shape is moving toward the building, as Mac runs for the door, ducking. Jack follows him, flinching at the sound of a shotgun blast behind him.  _ This guy doesn’t mess around.  _

He waits until they’ve put what he hopes is an acceptable amount of distance between them and the trigger happy maniac before he starts talking to Mac. “I got about six bullets left. So what's the plan there, kiddo?”

“I'm working on it,” Mac mumbles. He’s looking all around as they continue to run through the warehouse. 

“Yeah, well, kick the neurons into hyperdrive, will you? Murdoc and Helman probably both wanna kill us, and I got about six bullets left.”

“I heard you the first time.”

“Yeah, the only reason I'm telling you is so you know what you’ve got to work with if you decide to use ‘em all for some trick that might blow up in our faces and may or may not take either or both of these guys out.” 

“Really?”

“How do I know what you’re gonna come up with?” Jack grumbles. “You take apart my phone all the damn time, how should I know you’re not gonna take my gun too?”

“I don’t like guns.”

“You like all the moving parts.” Jack shakes his head. “Seriously, though, that’s about all we got to work with. That and all the crap laying around in here, which no doubt is a gold mine to you.” They’ve reached a large open area now, and there are stacks of rotting tarps and other debris strewn around. 

“Actually, I can work with this.”  _ Thought so. _

“Yeah? What's the plan?” 

“Well, Helman has the guns, so he’s our priority. We have to take him out and then worry about Murdoc. So I'm gonna make a drop net trap. It's the same one that's used on wild animals, but, uh, we're gonna lure Helman underneath it.” Mac’s unfolding a tarp and scrounging some other odds and ends. 

“With what?” There’s got to be a catch to this. Mac is way too focused on what he’s doing, he’s not looking Jack in the eyes at all, and his voice is very small and quiet when he answers. 

“With live bait.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, the role of "live bait" will be played by your very own Angus MacGyver.”  _ I don’t freaking believe it. Damn it, Mac, you develop a death wish all of a sudden? _

Mac looks at him pleadingly. “Just long enough for you to incapacitate him…”

“Mac. You already have one psycho killer who has a target painted on your back, and who I am very thankful at the moment does  _ not _ have a gun. I’m not lettin’ you set yourself up to get blown away by another one.” Jack shakes his head. “You already did one incredibly stupid thing today. Don’t push your luck. I’m going.”

“Jack…”

“Listen, dude, what are you gonna do? I have the gun if he starts trying to take me out. You gonna pull out your little wonder knife?”

Mac sighs, throwing up his hands in the way he does when he knows he’s beaten. “Okay, point taken. But Jack, please, be careful.”

“I am Mister Careful. My middle name is Careful.” 

“Your name is Mr. Jack Careful Careful?” Mac asks incredulously. 

Jack shakes his head. “Dude, I’m about to die, and you’re cracking jokes?”

“You’re not gonna die.” Mac looks at him seriously. “I won’t let you.”

“You better not.” Jack grins. “You’d miss me.” He sighs. “And...we’d never know whether I can have another shot with Diane.”

Mac’s busily tying knots in a rope that Jack thinks looks a little too frayed for his liking. “Oh yeah? Decided to give it another try?”

“Okay, dude, Let’s make a deal. You keep me alive today, when we get back I’ll ask Diane out on a real actual date. Let the chips fall where they may, and see where I stand at the end of it. Sound good?” 

Mac nods. “I got this locked down. I'm gonna set the trap. You...uh...go find Helman and bring him this way.”

“Yeah, okay. But you better be long gone when I get back here with him or I might shoot you myself.” Mac gives him a halfhearted grin, the kid’s shivering again.  _ Running only kept him warm for so long.  _

“Good luck,” Mac says as Jack turns to leave. 

“Save it for later.”

* * *

_ Jack’s going to kill me when he finds out I’m planning on being the bait too. _ If Mac’s plan goes properly, Jack won’t be the lure at all. Murdoc will.  _ He’s not going to cut and run. Not if he thinks he has the chance to take me alone. _ Mac saw the shadow moving past the window, he made sure to tell Jack his plan loud enough that Murdoc could overhear.  _ He’ll come back for me, and then Helman will come for him.  _ At this point Mac doesn’t much care if Helman manages to shoot Murdoc or not.  _ But it’ll give him a target he wants more than Jack or me. _ He promised Jack he wouldn’t let him die. And he’s going to keep that promise. 

He’s bent over, tying up a corner of the trap, when he hears the footsteps. He’s positioned himself carefully to be able to see both doors, and he starts to stand up.  _ I just have to stall him until Jack gets back with Helman. I can do that. _ Murdoc’s taller than him, but Mac’s got over a year of spy training now. And a heavy piece of lead pipe that he’s holding out of sight behind his leg. 

“Finally, we’re all alone together.” Murdoc steps out from behind the corner of the door, and Mac takes a deep breath.  _ I can… _ and then he sees what’s in Murdoc’s hands. Somehow, the man got his hands on a gun, and it’s leveled straight at Mac. “What’s the matter, Angus? Surely you didn’t bring a knife to a gun fight. Oh wait, that’s exactly your style.” 

_ Well, like about sixty-eight percent of my plans, this just went from pretty bad to really bad really fast.  _ Mac sighs. 

“So thoughtful of you to send Papa Bear away. Hope he survives. It would be a shame not to see the look on his face when he realizes I have his precious little Angus.” Mac swallows, fingers twitching on the pipe.  _ He doesn’t want to actually kill me, so maybe if I can get close enough without him seeing that I have a weapon… _

A deafening crack of a shot rings though the warehouse, and Mac falls backward with a pained cry, the pipe slipping from his suddenly numb hand to the ground with a clatter. And then two more shots ring out, and Mac hears a wet gasp that isn’t his own. He tilts his head just enough to see Helman behind him, crumpling to the ground, the shotgun slipping out of his hands. Murdoc blows on the muzzle of his gun theatrically before stepping forward toward Mac.

_ I have to get up. I have to get out of here. _ Mac starts to roll over, but then the pain hits in a crushing wave and he bites off a choked scream as he falls back onto his back. 

Murdoc smiles, eerily pleased. Mac gasps and tries to push himself to his feet, he can’t be on the ground, he can’t be this vulnerable, he can’t let Murdoc get this close.  _ This time he has no reason to let me go. _

“Not so brave, are we now, little puppy? Oh, you were awfully tough when I was all tied up, but now you’re not threatening me, are you?” Murdoc laughs. 

Mac shivers, trying to scramble backward. He’s wounded, weakened, he knows he can’t fight back for long.  _ Where is Jack? _ “Jack!” 

Murdoc only laughs. “And here I was hoping to hear you scream  _ my _ name. Well, I suppose there’s plenty of time to get there.”

“No, there isn’t.” Mac lets his head fall back against the cold, bloodstained concrete. Jack is here, he can relax, everything is going to be okay now. “Get away from him, you sick bastard, or I am gonna put one through your skull, I swear to God. And put that gun down before I have to use mine.” 

Murdoc slowly sets the gun down on the ground, then kicks it toward Jack. “Oh, don’t worry, Jack, I wasn’t going to kill him. I just saved his life.”

“We both know you didn’t do it out of the goodness of your heart.” Jack steps in to stand over Mac, and the protection feels better than Mac will admit.  _ Murdoc is right. I’m still afraid of him, no matter how much I try to pretend otherwise.  _

“Well, now that you mention it, I do want something from you. Something only you can give me.” Murdoc smiles. 

“You’ll get your hands on Mac over my dead body, you monster.” Jack’s holding Helman’s shotgun now, and he racks it menacingly. 

Murdoc chuckles. “Oh, as  _ fun _ as that would be, I actually had something different in mind. Unless you’re offering…” 

“Only thing I’m offering is a free bullet.” Jack growls. “Now don’t you move.” He carefully picks up the rope Mac was using for the trap and then grabs Murdoc’s arms, pulls his hands behind him and ties them, and then forces him to his knees, tying his feet. As soon as he’s done he hurries back to Mac. 

“Okay, kiddo, how bad is it?”

“He missed on purpose,” Mac grinds out. He’s putting as much pressure as he can on the wound, but there’s still a lot of blood and the pain is becoming unbearable. 

“No shit, Sherlock.” Jack rips a sleeve off his tac shirt, balls it up, and shoves it against the wound. Mac tries to swallow the sob of pain, but only halfway succeeds. And through the haze of agony, he hears Murdoc chuckle.

“Ooh, front row seats to watching little Angus bleed. This is gonna be  _ fun. _ ”

* * *

FIFTEEN MINUTES EARLIER

Murdoc can’t believe his good fortune. Angus is so confident that he has nothing left to fear from Murdoc, that he actually agreed to take off his cuffs.  _ I’ve been wanting to test this theory ever since the whole little show on the train. _ MacGyver made it a point to show how little importance Murdoc has right now to him, and Murdoc knew that was the spot where he could get a little leverage.  _ He doesn’t want to show that he’s afraid of me. And that’s going to be why he loses.  _

Now, he’s free, free to do whatever he wants.  _ If I run, there’s no way they can catch me.  _ And there is a police car parked outside. But there’s also the little matter of needing to keep Angus alive.  _ It would be such a waste if Helman just shot him. _

He knows Helman’s weaknesses. It’s a point of pride with the man to only ever carry one weapon.  _ He knows how good he is, knows he doesn’t need to be armed to the teeth to do his job. _ But that also means he’ll have left any backup guns in the car. 

He’s walking past one of the windows on the way to the car when he hears voices.  _ Jack and Angus. _ He leans a little closer to the window to listen.  _ Oh, this is too perfect.  _ MacGyver is setting a little trap and sending Jack off to hunt for Helman.  _ He’s all alone. Perfect. _ Murdoc can grab a gun, grab Angus and drive off with him, and leave Jack to hunt for Helman. 

Sure enough, there’s a dead cop in the back seat of the patrol car, and the man’s duty weapon is still holstered on his belt. Murdoc grabs it and slips back inside. Angus stands up the second he comes in, a metal pipe poorly concealed behind his leg.  _ Oh really? _

He’s about to tell MacGyver to drop that pathetic attempt at a weapon when he sees the movement behind him.  _ Oh no you don’t. He’s mine. _ His first shot clips Angus’s shoulder, sending him to the floor with a truly delicious cry of pain. The second two hit Helman center mass, dropping him to the floor with only a faint gurgle. 

Angus is scrambling on the floor, clearly terrified. Murdoc smiles, drawing out the moment as he stands over the helpless, bleeding boy.  _ Oh, this will be fun. _

And then Dalton shows up, shouting and cursing and waving his gun around. Murdoc knows better than to piss the man off.  _ After all, I did just shoot Papa Bear’s precious cub. _ Jack will know it’s him, Angus’s wound clearly isn’t a shotgun blast. Jack is predictably rough as he ties Murdoc up, but that’s not really his concern right now. 

“You know, if you’d rather not give me our favorite little blond boy scout, I have something else I’d like in exchange for saving his life.”

“Saving his life? You shot him!” Jack is putting as much pressure as he can on the wounds, but there’s still so much wonderful blood everywhere. Angus’s whole shirt is stained with it, and there’s plenty on the concrete as well. 

“Taking him out of Helman’s line of fire.” Murdoc shrugs. “I improvised. I thought you liked it when people did that.” Jack grinds his teeth together violently. “Well, if that’s not enough to make you want to do an old friend a favor, what if I told you everything about my little Collective?”

“Nice try, but we’re already tracking them down.” 

“Tracking the money, Jack? Oh, you won’t get them that way. What about this? For every name and location of one of my members I give you, I get one visit with Cassian.”  _ Of course, I only need one, but he doesn’t need to know that. _ “Well, I don’t need you to agree to it anyway. I’m sure dear Matilda will be more reasonable.”

“Shut it. Or I’ll put a bullet in you.” 

Murdoc just chuckles, leaning back. Jack won’t want to have Murdoc somewhere he can’t keep an eye on him while he tries to take care of precious little Angus. And the way the boy’s bleeding, Jack can’t afford to take his hands off his shoulder for a moment. It’s clear MacGyver is already cold, and now going into shock from blood loss. Jack’s trying to keep pressure on both the entry and exit wounds, and whispering encouragement to the shivering, half-sobbing boy on the floor.  _ All I have to do is sit here and watch.  _ Of course, his hands are in an unfortunate position, but that’s a minor detail. 

Jack talks softly to Angus while he tears off chunks of his clothing to put pressure on the wound. “I’m callin’ Matty, Helman had a burner on him. She’s gonna get a team here. Okay, just hold on, kiddo.” Jack dials the phone one-handed and tucks it under his cheek to answer, and when he hangs up and tosses it aside, the blood that his fingers smeared onto the keys is staining his face. 

Murdoc sits quietly for a long time, listening to the soft sobs, the keening whimpers, and the quiet gasps. Angus is squirming slightly under Jack’s hands, and now there’s blood streaked on his chin and forehead where Jack has momentarily put a hand on the boy’s face to try to comfort him.  _ Lovely. _ The sight brings a particular favorite thought to mind, and he just can’t keep it to himself any longer. 

“With his beautiful face and his beautiful soul, he was a thing to wonder at...whose sorrows stir one's sense of beauty,  and whose wounds are like red roses.” Murdoc mumbles it under his breath, just loud enough that he knows both Dalton and Angus will hear it. 

_ That brute Dalton won’t know what I mean. But Angus might. _ When he shared that cell wall with Alvarez, the man told him MacGyver always had some book with him, which Murdoc can only assume was a pathetic attempt to distract himself from the horror story he was living.  _ Marco said he had a taste for classics. _ It’s possible  _ The Picture of Dorian Gray  _ was among the books he’d found over those two years. 

Murdoc has always been fond of the book, of the way it explores the potential of the human spirit for darkness, but only now does he fully appreciate it.  _ I’ve always felt a sort of kinship with Gray, with that ability to project a false face to the world, to hide the realities within.  _ But ever since he’s met MacGyver, he’s found himself more and more identifying with the portrait painter, the man who met a gentle, soulful creature and found his muse, who became so enamored with him that his art held fragments of him in all of it. The way Murdoc has seen Angus’s beautiful blue eyes, or his clever hands, or his soft quivering lips, in the others he’s killed since meeting the boy. But none of them can come close to the perfection that is Angus, or the pure pleasure that it is to watch him bleed. He was being completely honest in that basement all those months ago. MacGyver inspires him. 

Murdoc might be a psychopath, but that’s never impeded his love of art.  _ So many artists are tortured souls. So many hide their darknesses behind their creations. _ They sought outlets for the monsters inside by creating something in which their darkness could not only take form, but even be celebrated. People call Poe, Dali, Wilde, Picasso, Stoker, Hemingway, so many others...geniuses, artists. _ And yet when I simply bring that twisted darkness into the real physical world, they call me a monster. _

He’s always considered himself an artist. But just because his masterpieces are painted in blood, because the instruments he plays on are human and the music he coaxes out is screams, because his sculptor’s tools carve human flesh, because his great works of genius are written as epitaphs on the tombstones of his victims, he’s a monster to the world. 

“The hell are you talking about?” Dalton growls. Murdoc just smiles. 

“It’s from a book,” Angus whispers, and his voice is so small and broken with pain, it’s delicious. “ _ The Picture of Dorian Gray _ .”

“What is it with you and those freakin’ creepy stories?” Jack asks. “First that one about people huntin’ other people, now this…”

“Oh, but it’s such a good book,” Murdoc whispers. “Such a mirror of the human condition. How a man can be truly evil and manage to hide it all.”

“Well, clearly you didn’t learn anything from it, you creep.” 

“Well, I’ve never had a portrait painted. You know, the life of the assassin, can’t have pictures of yourself lying around. But then again, I don’t care much if the world sees me for what I am. But it’s rather a pity poor little  _ Angus _ doesn’t have somewhere else to hide those haunted eyes, or all those  _ memorable _ scars.” He licks his lips, being sure to speak loud enough that MacGyver will hear him clearly. “Where  _ did _ he get that lovely new one on his thigh?”  

Angus’s face goes white from more than blood loss, and Jack’s turns crimson with anger. “How…”

“Curtains are only useful if you actually remember to  _ close  _ them.” Murdoc smiles. “It seems Angus is forgetful when he’s tired. Or did your hands just hurt too much? You know, you really should take better care of those clever fingers.” It was only one night that Angus forgot his fear of being watched, too tired and in pain, surely, to focus. But it only had to happen once. Murdoc wishes he still had the photograph. Not that it matters to  _ him, _ it was burned into his mind from the moment he took it. But he’d just  _ love _ to see the look on Dalton’s face if he was able to show him. 

Angus is fading fast. Even with Dalton’s coat spread over him for warmth, he’s stopped shivering, and he’s gone from pale to almost translucent and bluish. Murdoc clicks his tongue. “Oh Jack, you know he’s not going to make it until your team gets here.” He shrugs slightly. “Well, not without help.” 

“Oh no. You are not putting your hands on him. No way.”

“Even if the only other choice is letting him die? Really, Jack?”

Jack stops. It looks like he’s actually considering it. And then there’s a thwap of helicopter blades and Murdoc rolls his eyes as a Phoenix tac team rushes in.  _ Impeccable timing. _ Oh well. There’s Matilda to schmooze and Cassian to see and people to kill. And then there will be plenty of time to get his hands on Angus. 

* * *

This is Jack’s worst nightmare. Mac, wounded at Murdoc’s hands, bleeding to death in the middle of nowhere. Despite everything Jack’s doing, the kid’s still losing blood. Too much. 

And it absolutely sickens him that Murdoc is watching it all. From the sound of his breathing, he’s getting a sick pleasure from it.  _ That’s the most twisted thing I’ve ever heard of.  _ Jack can’t stand the thought that Murdoc is actually reacting that way to seeing Mac in unbearable pain. 

Because every choked sob, every strangled whimper, is a knife through Jack’s heart.  _ Oh kiddo, why does this happen to you? _

Murdoc starts droning on about creepy books, and Jack tries to ignore him. He can’t bear to look at that man and see the twisted hungry burning in his eyes. Mac is shaking and panting and tears are streaking down his face, washing away the blood Jack’s accidentally smeared on him in faint clear streaks. 

“Just hold on, kiddo. They’re coming for us.” He’s lucky Helman had a burner. Matty has a team en route, and Mac just has to hold out a little longer. But there’s so much blood. Jack tries to ignore the way Mac’s breathing gets more ragged every time he presses harder against the wound. 

Mac is fading in and out of consciousness now, sometimes mumbling something that seems vaguely like math formulas, sometimes clearly trying to choke back whimpers and screams. “I’m so sorry, Mac, I know it hurts, but please stay with me. Don’t you dare fall asleep, you hear me?”

Mac isn’t even shivering anymore. The combination of shock and already-problematic hypothermia isn’t a good thing. Jack knows he’s feeling the effects as well, he’s missing most of his shirt now and his coat is covering Mac, but he’s not the one who took a through and through to the shoulder. He’ll be fine. 

He considers trying to take Murdoc’s coat to spread over the kid too, he doesn’t care if the guy complains about the cold or better yet freezes into a creepsicle. But that would require both leaving Mac and partly freeing Murdoc, neither of which are attractive options. There are too many guns in this room for Jack to feel comfortable giving Murdoc even a little leash. 

And then Murdoc speaks up, putting words to Jack’s worst fear, with a voice that sounds sickeningly husky.  _ You pervert.  _ “Oh Jack, you know he’s not going to make it until your team gets here. Well, not without help.” 

“Oh no. You are not putting your hands on him. No way.”

“Even if the only other choice is letting him die? Really, Jack?”  _ Is that really our only two options? Mac dies, or Murdoc gets to basically grope him while he’s nearly unconscious? _ Jack’s pretty sure that Murdoc wants nothing more than to feel Mac’s blood under his fingers. 

 And then Jack hears the distinctive thudding of inbound choppers, and looks up as a tac team storms in. Two of them secure Helman, and three more run toward Jack. He’s surprised to see one very familiar face there.

“Thought your field days were over.”

Sam shakes her head, ponytail whipping from side to side. “This is personal.” She glares at Murdoc, finger sliding from her trigger guard to actually rest over the trigger. “We’re playing a little game. And it looks like I just won this round.”

“Mac needs a medic fast.”

“They’re on their way. Now that Helman and Murdoc are accounted for it’s safe to send them in. We’ll take him from here.” Cage yanks Murdoc to his feet harshly. “You put one toe out of line, and I’ll be more than happy to put a few rounds in you.” 

Jack steps back obediently as a medic team swarms Mac, checking his vitals, lifting him onto a stretcher, putting pressure on the wound to the point that the kid bucks against their hands and screams in pain. He’s too out of it to control his reactions anymore, and Jack shudders. He’s dimly aware someone’s draping a warm thermal blanket around his shoulders, but he only has eyes for the kid on the stretcher as the medics haul him out.  _ Come on, kiddo. Keep fighting. Don’t you dare let Murdoc win. _

* * *

PHOENIX MEDICAL

DIANE WONDERS HOW OFTEN HER BABY GIRL IS IN HERE

When Riley asks if Diane wants to come visit Mac, she agrees immediately. Riley wasn’t able to tell her much about the ‘op’ Mac and Jack were on, but she did say that they managed to catch the people they were trying to, but Mac got shot. 

_ It’s terrifying that in this world, that’s an expected job hazard. _ Riley’s said she’s an open book for any questions that aren’t directly about specific covert operations, but Diane really can’t bring herself to ask them.  _ Do I want to know how many times she’s been shot? How many times she was tortured? _

When they get to medical, Mac’s sitting up in bed, a sling on his arm and the slightly too-large green hospital gown sliding down over his shoulder enough to show the edges of a white bandage. When Diane walks in with Riley, Mac blushes self-consciously and pulls the collar of the gown tighter around his neck. 

Jack smiles up at Diane tiredly.  _ Riley said he didn’t leave here during Mac’s whole surgery.  _ Jack is extremely dedicated to the people he cares about. Riley’s vaguely alluded to how many times he’s risked his life to protect her, and it’s impressive. 

Matty is sitting near the head of the bed, smiling at Mac fondly. “Well, aside from a shattered collarbone, it looks like Murdoc didn’t do much lasting damage. But you really are determined to milk your injury leave for all it’s worth.” 

“At least we have him and Helman.” Mac’s fingers twitch against the thin cloth at his chest. 

Matty nods. “Yes. Helman was in critical condition but he’ll live to stand trial for his actions. Apparently three separate governments are fighting over extradition rights.” 

“Just as long as they lock him up,” Jack says. “I want to put this whole op in the rearview.”

“Unfortunately that might be a while,” Bozer says, and Riley nods, pulling out her computer.  

_ This is her job. Every day, this is what she does.  _ “Once I got our sat feeds back online, I was able to pinpoint the chemical signature from the money. Phoenix tac teams rounded up a money laundering operation at a supposedly condemned office complex in Ohio. These guys, according to their records, have been working with everyone from ISIS to freelance assassins.”  _ There’s so much of their world I don’t understand.  _ It’s like her little girl is speaking a whole different language. Which, apparently, she does. Five fluently and eight more semi-conversationally. And she said something about knowing “target words” in even more. Another question Diane’s afraid to get the answer to. 

“Man, that is exactly why everyone says to stay out of Ohio,” Jack mutters. 

“Unfortunately, none of Murdoc’s Collective were there. Murdoc claims there were twelve, not including him.” 

“So we still have the Dirty Dozen to track down, huh?” Jack says, and his hand strays to his side, where Diane is sure his gun usually is. 

“Yes. But Murdoc has agreed to give us everything he knows about them, in exchange for visits with Cassian.” Matty sighs. “It was the best decision I could make, Jack.”

He nods. “You do what you have to do. And then we put those guys somewhere they don’t see the light of day.”

“Hey, Jack,” Mac says, and his voice is a little weak, but determined. “I kept you alive, so now you gotta do it.”

“Do what kiddo?”

“You know.” Mac nods his head toward Diane. 

“Oh. Right. Okay, so, uh…” Jack turns to her, gaze flickering between her eyes and his shoes. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but when Mac and I were out there, we kinda thought we might die, and I promised him if I lived through this I was gonna ask you out on a date.” He looks up at her again, and there’s a world of hurt in his eyes. “No secrets, no lies. Just us. The real us. If...if you still want to after everything.”

Diane bites her lip and taps her toe against the tiles. “The truth?”

“Well, anything that doesn’t violate the Espionage Act.” Jack shrugs. 

“I hear I got stood up all those years ago for a very good reason.” She smiles. “So I guess it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to try again. But if you have to skip out on our date to save the world, at least tell me that.”

“Will do.” Jack grins. “So Cody’s Coneys at nine?”

“You haven’t changed one bit, have you?” She shakes her head. “Cody’s it is.” Jack pulls her into a hug, and she ignores the clapping from most of the room’s residents (aside from the one with one working arm). Maybe it won’t be so bad to be dating a spy after all.  _ Riley already is one, so I’m stuck with that life no matter what. In for a penny, in for a pound. _

* * *

UNDISCLOSED LOCATION

CASSIAN’S SOON TO BE FORMER RESIDENCE

It’s almost too easy. Matilda didn’t see the problem in exchanging favor for favor. Now she has the name of exactly one of the members of the Collective, the one Murdoc knows will be the hardest to pin down. _ It’s not like I’m not going to come through on my end of the deal, really, when you think about it.  _ He still plans on doing exactly what he promised Dalton he would. Killing his former associates slowly and painfully.  _ When they’re dead, I’ll send a message to Phoenix telling them who it was and where the bodies are buried. _

He hasn’t seen Cassian in over a year now.  _ He’s grown so much.  _ He’s sitting at a small table, drawing with a pack of crayons, when the door opens, but he jumps up as soon as he sees Murdoc, crayons spilling all over the floor. “Dad!” 

Murdoc leans down to hug him. “I've been looking everywhere for you, buddy.”

“Want to see what I drew?” 

“Only more than anything.” Cassian grabs a paper off the table. There’s a scribbled sunshine and a tree, and what looks like him and Cassian and then off to the side a very small person with long purple hair. Murdoc can only assume that’s Cassian’s attempt to capture Matilda.  _ She’s a bigger part of his life than I realized.  _ But what really catches his attention is the blue and brown person right next to Cassian on the opposite side from Murdoc, with lots of yellow scribbles over their head and something bright red in one hand. Murdoc smiles.  _ Oh MacGyver. It seems you’ve made quite an impression on my son as well. _

“Oh, wow, that's wonderful.” 

“I have more.” Cassian picks up a handful of papers, and Murdoc notices that some of them are held together with very strangely shaped paperclips. 

“Maybe you can show 'em to me later.”

“Are we going home?” Cassian asks excitedly.  

“Do you still have that birthday present that I sent you?” Cassian reaches into his backpack and pulls out the ipod and headphones. “Perfect. Do me a favor. Can you put 'em on?” Cassian nods and slips the headphones over his ears. “Now play your favorite song. Turn up the volume really loud and close your eyes. And keep 'em closed real tight until I tell you to open 'em. Okay?” 

There’s a pencil sharpener on the table, and it’s all Murdoc needs. 

He makes sure to collect Cassian and his drawings when he leaves. “What’s that smell?” Cassian asks as Murdoc carries him to the door. 

“Nothing you need to worry about. Someone just spilled something. Murdoc carefully wipes his shoes in the grass before stepping into the car parked out front. He’s already thrown away his gloves and washed the sleeves of his coat. 

He drives until he reaches a quiet suburban street, then turns to Cassian. “Hey, pal, Daddy has to make a quick stop before we get where we're going. Do me a favor. Put your headphones back on.” Cassian does, leaning back and smiling. 

“And then home?”

“And then home.” 

Murdoc climbs the steps of the house, whistling softly and fingering the folded paper in his pocket. He wants nothing more than to see Angus again in person, but there’s work to be done before that. 

As much fun as it would be to put a bullet in Dalton’s oversized, good-natured heart and listen to Angus’s wails of grief and devastation, and then haul the boy away and spend some quality time with him, Murdoc will just have to wait. He has other matters to attend to, and he can come back for MacGyver any time. 

He picks the lock on the door and then chooses a long butcher knife from the kitchen when he walks into the apartment.  _ And he has a gas stove. Perfect. _ He can just see Fletcher, down the hall in the bedroom, starting to fold a load of laundry. He whistles a little louder, and the man looks up, utter shock and horror crossing his face. 

“Hello, Henry. I want you to know that I came for you first.”


	17. Hammock + Balcony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, in case you missed the last note that mentioned this, I'm writing an original novel! Which means my time has been kind of tied up, so after this chapter, we're going to be going on a brief hiatus. I wanted to wait until we were getting new content from the Season 4 filming to take a break, but hopefully this is only going to be 2-3 weeks while I finish the first draft of my book. It also means I probably won't have to take a hiatus between Season 2 and Season 3 here, or at least not a very long one, and when we get to 223 you'll probably thank me for that...

### 216-Hammock+Balcony

SOMEWHERE IN IRAN

BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

“Jack?” Mac’s voice sounds like it’s coming from somewhere very far away. Jack’s struggling to breathe through the smoke. 

 _No, there is no smoke. No coffin. No fire._ He’s not in New Orleans, not nailed into a coffin and shoved into an incinerator. He’s stuck in a literal hole in a wall in Iran, and Mac is right here in front of him. 

“Mac, get me out of here!” _It hasn’t been this bad since the Deltas._ He genuinely thought that after that one really bad mission he had a handle on how to deal with traumatic memories. It seems like he doesn’t, after all. _I’ve been having nightmares. Worse than ever._ Of the fire, but also of Murdoc. Of what he threated to do to Mac. _I want to protect him, but I couldn’t even save myself._

“I’m trying!” Mac’s panting, clutching his bad shoulder. _He shouldn’t be back in the field, but this was a job with his name written all over it._  

“That gigantor hard drive we stole off the Iranian secret police is still in my pocket, and it’s kinda jamming up the works!” Jack can feel it catching against the edges of the hole. 

“Can you go backward?” Mac asks. “Pull it out, shove it through, and then come follow it?”

“Um…” Jack starts to wiggle backward. But his shoulders are already through the hole on Mac’s side, and he can’t wedge them back through. The more he struggles, the more he feels trapped, and his bad shoulder twinges painfully. If he keeps pushing he’s going to dislocate it. “No, I can’t, kiddo. I can’t do that.” 

“Hold on, I’m gonna get you out of there. I’ll figure something out.” Mac stands up, and Jack tries to push down the panic he feels at the kid leaving his line of sight. Mac’s grabbing some random things and it looks like he’s pulling down wires from somewhere. 

“What are you doing, kiddo?” 

“Making a block and tackle.” Jack flinches when he hears footsteps and dogs barking.

“You better hurry up, Mac, cause they have _literally_ released the hounds.” He doesn’t really want to get torn up by some angry dogs. “I think they might be a little pissed we took their stuff.” 

Mac hurries over, holding out a loop of cable like a lariat. “Put your hands through.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Jack lifts his arms and lets Mac work the cords around them. “Here we go.”

“All right. Now, the pipes are gonna act as a pulley, increasing mechanical advantage…” Mac’s talking fast, words stumbling over themselves. He’s starting to panic too. _Great, I’m freaking the kid out._

“Mac, Mac, that’s great, buddy, but you can tell me all about it once you get me outta here. Okay? Just pull.” Mac hauls on the cords as hard as he can, and hands Jack the ends so he can add a bit of pull to it too. “Hey, be careful of that shoulder.” Mac’s face is lined with pain, clearly this isn’t good for the healing bullet wound, but Jack knows the kid is too stubborn to stop. _And we don’t exactly have much of a choice._

There’s a disconcerting ripping sound from behind him, but Jack is actually moving now. Every inch of him that’s in contact with the rough floor of the tunnel protests at being scraped across it, but he doesn’t really care. The second he’s able to, he pulls himself forward and drops to the ground, groaning. _I do not want to do that again_. 

He reaches back for the hard drive, but his hand finds nothing. _Guess that ripping sound was it, and part of my pocket, getting left on the other side of that wall._

“Are you okay?” Mac asks, panting. “Jack?”

“No. That hard drive we came all the way over here and you and I both almost died for is on the other side of that wall with the police and their not-very-friendly dogs.”

Mac moves faster than Jack would have thought possible, diving into the hole and reaching through. Jack starts to pull him back, then stops, moving his hands away from the kid’s legs. _Not a good idea. Not after the nightmares I’ve heard._ He doesn’t need both of them freaking out. Mac makes a small triumphant gasp and then slides himself back out, holding the disk in one hand. _Of course you fit, skinny kid._ Jack says nothing, though.

“Okay, let’s...” Mac trails off, and Jack wonders why the kid’s staring at him so strangely. “You need to rest.” 

“I’m fine, hoss.”

“No, you’re not. Don’t lie to me. You never want me to lie to you about it.” Mac looks at him sadly. “I know a panic attack when I see one.” _That’s probably true._ The kid’s had several of them. He puts his hands on Jack’s shoulders the way Jack’s done for him too many times to count. “Breathe. I can’t have you passing out on me when we’re trying to get away from these guys.” Jack takes a deep breath and realizes he really wasn’t doing such a good job of that a second ago. _Trying not to inhale smoke._

He has to get out of that place in his head and come back to reality. Mac’s hands on his shoulders are grounding, solid, and the cold stone against his back and legs is too. Come to think of it, certain parts of him are feeling the cold a little too much. Jack stands up slowly and turns, trying to see what the damage is. Mac beats him to it. 

“Uh...Jack…” Mac is shaking his head and has a hand over his mouth like he’s trying not to laugh. “There’s...kind of a big hole in the seat of your pants.” _Yep. That’s what I thought._ The hard drive must have taken his pocket with it. 

“Well, I think I’m good to go now.”

“Great. But I’m going in front. I don’t want to have to stare at your boxers all the way out of this place.” Mac looks up at him with a slightly confused grin. “What are those, kittens?”

“Ewoks, dude, ewoks!” Jack is laughing now. It’s okay, they’re fine. They’re going to be alright. 

* * *

WAR ROOM

JACK’S PANTS ARE INTACT THIS TIME

“For the last time, dude, the Star Wars boxers are my lucky ones. And the Ewoks are the only pair left that don’t have a big hole somewhere unpleasant, so count yourself lucky it wasn’t the R2-D2 ones, man!” Mac shakes his head, chuckling. But the second he pushes open the door of the War Room, the smile slides away. Patty is up front, and from the look on her face something is very wrong. 

“Hey, Patty, what’s goin’ on? This isn’t another art thief from your shadowy past, is it?” Jack asks, but the joke falls flat. 

“Matty is still on the phone with the CIA finishing up an agent request for the mission she’ll be briefing you on.” Patty says. “But I wanted to share the most recent news we have on Murdoc.” 

“You got a location?” Jack asks. “Cause I’ve got a mag in my locker with his name on it.”

“Unfortunately not.” Patty sighs. “We have a victim.” She pulls up a photograph on the screen, and Mac feels his stomach flip. “Henry Fletcher.” The picture is joined by a series of others documenting the body dumped naked and mutilated in a field. 

“It appears Fletcher was tortured, quite brutally.” Mac swallows hard and looks away from the pictures. Riley has a hand over her mouth in shock while Bozer looks vaguely green, but what’s pushed Mac past the tipping point isn’t the brutality, the blood and torn flesh. It’s that he recognizes every single one of those wounds. From the burned hands to the stabbed thigh to the gash across the stomach. _He matched my scars mark for mark on Fletcher’s body._ “Murdoc was out for revenge.” _He said he was gonna do it. Like the spiders. Torturing them slowly._

But Mac has the sense that this wasn’t about revenge. At least not completely. _Maybe Murdoc wasn’t just talking about his fellow Collective members when he was planning on terrorizing someone. Maybe he meant me all along._ Because every new thing Murdoc has done has only succeeded in making Mac more afraid of what he’s capable of. 

Mac can feel his breathing picking up. He’s going to be sick. He pushes past Jack and Riley and stumbles out of the War Room, sitting down hard on the bench outside and dropping his head into his hands. _He’s going to kill every one of those people in his collective and I know he’s going to make it about me._ How is he supposed to live with that?

He feels a hand on his arm and looks up to see Jack bending down over him. “Jack…”  
“I saw, bud.” Jack’s hands are shaking. _The others don’t know, except maybe Bozer, he’s the only one who’s seen most of my scars. But Jack knew right away._ “Oh kiddo. We’re gonna find him, I swear.” 

“He’s sending me some kind of message.” Mac twists the paperclip between his fingers, he hasn’t been paying attention to what he’s making, but it looks vaguely like a gun. He drops it to the floor, putting his shoe over it deliberately. All he can see is Murdoc raising that gun to him in the warehouse. _He could have killed me. But what he wants is worse._

Jack sits down beside him, sliding an arm around his shoulders. “He’s sick.”

Mac shivers. “I think he’s saying that if he found Fletcher, he can find me.”

“I’m not gonna let him. Okay?” Jack rubs a hand on Mac’s good arm. “I’ll stay with you or you stay with me until they find him.” 

“I mean, that’s how it already is most of the time.” _I’ve been injured so often this year that Jack’s spent as much time with me as he has at his own place._ Between the concussions and his knee and his ankle and his hands, and the nerve gas and Murdoc… He doesn’t know how much longer he can keep going like this. _I’m making it harder for everyone else._ And sure, everyone gets injured on this job, Jack is walking wounded proof, but between Murdoc and the unending search for James, Mac is burning out. _We’re never going to catch them. And Jack is always going to want to protect me from them._  

“What’s wrong, kiddo?” Jack asks. _Can I make a list?_

“It’s just...Murdoc, and James…” He sighs. “I can’t find either of them, and I’m always one step behind them no matter what.” He notices the paperclip’s shape has changed completely as he’s been talking. Now it looks like a lily of the valley blossom. 

“You figured out what those little flowers mean yet?” Jack asks. 

Mac looks up at him and shakes his head. “I’ve tried every possible way to interpret them as a code. The number of flowers, the patterns, everything.” He sighs, leaning back and wincing when he stretches his still healing shoulder. “And believe me, I’ve had plenty of time to think about it.”

“Well, there’s someone right inside this door who might be able to help us.” Jack nudges Mac’s shoulder. “You showed that stuff to Patty yet?” He shakes his head. _She’s Oversight, she doesn’t need to be bothered with this kind of thing, especially when it’s leading me nowhere._ He can’t explain why he continues to play James’s game. _Am I proving something to myself, or to him?_

“It’s worth a shot, kiddo.” Jack says. “Why don’t you ask?” Mac pulls up the picture on his phone and walks back inside. The photos of Fletcher are gone, and everyone has the tact not to mention a thing when Mac abruptly changes the subject to James and hands over his phone. 

“I don’t remember James ever using these as a calling card.” Patty turns the phone so she can see the whole photo the right way up. “I’m sorry, Mac. I wish I could be more help.” 

The door slams open, and Matty walks in, her brisk, purposeful stride that means this is a big mission that just came in. “Guys. I hate to interrupt the search for two world-famous criminals, but we just got handed a time sensitive mission.” Matty pulls up the screen, then turns around. “Jack, what’s wrong with your arm?”

“Nothing.” Jack glances at Mac, shaking his head. _Matty doesn’t miss anything._ Jack’s shoulder’s been giving him trouble since Mac used that block and tackle under his arms to pull him out of that hole in Iran, and he threw it completely out this morning in training. Even then he still managed to pin Mac to the floor for almost the whole count. 

“Oh, is that why Jill told me she relocated your shoulder this morning?”

“She told you about that?”

“When I asked her why Jack Dalton was voluntarily in the labs without Mac right there with him.” Mac was under orders to go straight to the PT to get his shoulder iced after the sparring session. Jack had promptly fled the other way. _He hates medical almost as much as I do._

“It’s nothin’. Been throwing this shoulder out since I was in fifth grade.” 

Matty glares at him. “We have medical personnel for things like that. My guess is, you didn’t want to tell them you threw out your shoulder during your workout, so you wouldn’t get benched.” She pulls up the mission briefing. “Meet Boris Mitrovic. He's a Serbian war criminal and Interpol's Most Wanted since 1999. For nearly two decades, they've been trying to get near this guy and have failed.” Mac watches the list of charges ticking up the screen. This man’s wanted for everything from arms deals to genocide. “Then, two months ago, they caught a break, and they almost caught him, but the raid went sideways. Marko Mitrovic, Boris' right-hand man and oldest son, was killed, but, unfortunately, Boris escaped, and has since fallen off the face of this earth.” Mac turns away from the picture of the body on the bloodstained tile. Any other day, he could handle this, he’s seen worse, but today all he can see is his scars on Fletcher’s body. 

Riley nods. “I got an Interpol request back then to run his face in Friar. No hits. He could be anywhere.”

“But since he's responsible for hundreds of deaths, he is definitely someone that we would like to have a word with. Which brings me to Boris' other son, Omar.” Matty pulls up a picture that looks nothing like the other two. This guy is smiling, holding a glass of wine, and has a slim young blonde hanging on his arm. 

Jack frowns. “Kid looks pretty slick. You sure he's from that family of Quasimodos?” 

“Omar is the baby of the Mitrovic family, and the apple of his daddy's eye. So if anyone knows where Boris is, it's him.”

“How do we get close to Omar?” Bozer asks. 

“So here's the interesting part. Omar is not like his father or his brother. He rejected the family business, choosing instead to spend his nights and his daddy's dough throwing lavish parties at the family's ultra-secure compound. Other agencies have gotten agents in, but the ones that have gotten in...They never made it out.” _Well, that’s not ominous at all._  

“So you're sending us in next?” Bozer asks, voice raising the way it does when he genuinely can’t believe someone just said what they did.  

“Well, fortunately for us, I don't need to do that. So, three months ago, Omar started dating social media maven Mia McQueen.” Matty pulls up more pictures, these of the blonde in the photo with Omar. “Wildly popular, she's got something like 4. 2 million followers on social media and a clear aversion to wearing clothes. And last week, the couple tied the knot in an impromptu wedding at the family compound.” _Okay, that photo is almost as cringe-worthy as the one of Marko._

Riley raises an eyebrow. “Because what girl _doesn't_ want to get married in a bikini while drunk?” 

Matty turns back to the screen. “Well, let's not judge, because their rash decision just became our big break. Mia is making Omar leave the compound to take her on a honeymoon. The newly minted Mr. and Mrs. Mitrovic just booked ten days At Chateau Elan: an exclusive, off-the-grid resort in French wine country. This gives you ten days to go undercover as guests, become Omar's best friend, and get him to spill the beans on his daddy's location.” From the pictures and video scrolling across the screen, it looks like exactly the kind of high-end place Mac always feels extremely uncomfortable in. And he’s not sure how he feels about pretending to be married, either. 

Jack is grinning. "Guess I’ll just have to tell Diane I’m ditching our date this week for some gorgeous agent on my arm and ten days in France. It’s a tough life, but someone’s gotta save the world. I’m sure she’ll understand."

Matty rolls her eyes at him. "Glad to see your love life is finally not a flaming car wreck, Jack. But you’re not going."

“Matty, my arm’s not that bad.”

“I said you’re not on this op, Jack. Did I stutter?”

“No, ma’am.” 

Matty turns her attention back to the others. “Congratulations, Mac, Riley, you two just got hitched. And Bozer, you will be fake-married to an agent on loan from the CIA. Leanna Martin.” Mac watches his best friend’s face go from excited to horrified. _I thought he got along with her?_ _Oh wait. He liked her. As in really liked her._ Oops.

“Glover told me you two worked well as partners in spy school. I’m hoping the same will be true for this op.” Bozer breathes a tiny sigh of relief and it looks like his heart is starting to beat properly again.

“Um, yes. We did. We...she was alright.” Bozer’s always been like this. He’s a good storyteller, but when put on the spot his lies are outrageous and dig him even bigger holes. He tries to oversell his innocence and it gets him in trouble. _He almost outed us both to his mom so many times when I was a vigilante, the wild stories he made up to explain where I was or what happened to me._  

“Good, because when she gets here, you two are going to have to play happy couple. Think you’re up for that?”

* * *

Bozer’s pacing frantically in the Phoenix hallway. Leanna’s due in any minute now, and he has no idea what he’s going to do about this. _Play it cool. Don’t give them anything to pin on you._

The door opens and Leanna walks in, smiling widely when she sees him. Bozer feels his heart do a funny little flip, and for a second he can’t even get his mouth to form words. “Uh, Agent Martin. Good to see you again.” He’s trying to be formal. _Am I overdoing it?_ At least if he sounds cold hopefully no one will get suspicious.

“You, too, Agent Bozer.” Leanna’s giving him a quizzical look, clearly the overly formal greeting was a mistake. But she’s copying him, so that’s good, right? _You’re overthinking this Bozer. Just be cool._

“Um...Uh...Right. Pictures.”

“What?” Leanna glances at him, and this time there’s a lot less of the cool professionalism in her tone. It’s kind of been replaced by pure confusion. 

“Uh, we have to have wedding photos. In case everyone’s sharing them around. We can’t be the only ones who don’t have something to show all the other happy couples.”

“Right.” Leanna follows him down the hall toward the lab they’ll be getting their pictures taken in. Once they’re around a corner and alone for the moment, Bozer stops and turns around. “Listen, Leanna, my boss knows something.”

Leanna’s eyes go wider, making her look like a frightened deer standing in the middle of a road. “How? Did you tell anyone at Phoenix?”

“That we've been secretly dating, even though we were directly ordered never to see each other again for reasons of national security? Just Riley. And my sister Deja, but she’s family, so that’s different. You're gonna love Deja, she's great."

“She’s a paramedic right? In San Diego?” 

“How did you…”

“Read your files in spy school. Interrogation training, remember?” Leanna frowns. “You didn't tell Mac? I thought he was your best friend.”

“He’s kept enough secrets. I don’t want to get him in trouble if this whole thing blows up in our faces. Like it probably will at the end of this mission.” Bozer sighs. _I’m not gonna watch Mac get court-martialed for something I did._ He can’t do that to someone who’s already been through hell and back for something that wasn’t his fault. “Matty set this up. She said she heard something from Glover about us working well together.”

“Oh. Okay. If this is just about how well we performed as a team…” Leanna trails off. “Wait, Bozer, Glover saw us kissing. In the final exam.”  
“I know. And Matty didn’t say anything about that, but...Assigning my secret girlfriend to go undercover as my wife is exactly the kind of mind game she'd play.” He hopes this is only about their complementary field skills. But knowing Matty, it’s not. “I don’t think she knows for sure. Or she’d have fired me the second she found out. But maybe she wants to get proof.”

“So we just have to pretend we’re not a couple...while pretending we’re a couple. While your boss may or may not be toying with us to see if we'll slip up and expose our relationship so she can have us court-martialed?” 

“Sounds bad when you put it that way.” Bozer sighs. “Guess we’ll just have to be extra careful she doesn’t catch us.” He sighs. “I really want to kiss you right now, but we can't...right?”

“Actually, we can call it getting into character.” Leanna smiles. “Mr. Bozer, you may now kiss the bride.”

* * *

Jack knows arguing with Matty Webber is like arguing with a brick wall. But he has to try. “Matty, Mac’s barely field ready. And sending him out there without his overwatch is a huge risk. I’ve completed field ops with a lot worse than a dislocated shoulder, and you know it.”

“It’s not just about your arm,” Matty sighs. “I know all about Iran. Your comms were still hot when you got stuck in the wall." She sighs. “I didn’t say anything with the team there. But there’s clearly a problem. And according to Mac, you’ve been having as many nightmares if not more than he has. You are not returning to the field until you’ve seen the Phoenix therapist at least once.”

“Matty…”

“Argue with me, and I’ll insist on five sessions before you go back.” Jack knows better than to argue. Matty looks a bit stressed herself. _She was closer to that op than most people._ “I know you want to pretend it never happened and move on, but _it happened._ ” 

“I’ve been a hell of a lot closer to dying…”

“There’s no rhyme or reason for what affects us.” Matty sighs. “You’re benched until you see the therapist, and that’s final.” She shakes her head. “Even Mac goes when I tell him to, and he’s worse about things like that than you are, as much as I never thought that would be possible.” _She’s basically given a standing order that if Mac’s in PT he has to go to a Phoenix counselor as well._ And given the fact that far too many of Mac’s injuries have a very traumatic cause, it’s probably a really good idea. 

“It’s not about the therapist, Matty. It’s about putting Mac back in the damn field without me watching his back, with that maniac Murdoc out there somewhere.” 

“This is exactly _why_ you need to talk to someone, Jack. I know what happened in that warehouse shook Mac, but I’m starting to think it actually hit you harder.” Matty looks up at him, and there’s a lot of honest concern in her eyes. “I know how much you love him. I know you think of him as a son, and I...I do too. And it’s the hardest thing in the world to watch him go off on missions halfway across the world and watch from a screen here unable to do one thing to help him. But it’s what I have to do.”

“Because you’re the Director. I’m the kid’s damn overwatch. I’m supposed to have his back.”

“He has Riley, Leanna, and Bozer. Three fully trained agents, one of whom has reached the same Phoenix operations level as you. Jack, you know they would never let anything happen to him. And Mac is a trained agent himself. He’s not a child who needs you to hold his hand.” 

“Mac’s been through hell these past few months.”

“And you’ve been right there beside him.” Matty shakes her head. “He comes to you to deal with that. And frankly, if that’s the way he processes best, I’m not going to insist on changing that. But you don’t go to anyone. You bottle it all up. And at some point it’s going to be too much.” Matty sighs. “I know you won’t come talk to me. And I get it. But you have to talk to someone.” She forces Jack to look her in the eyes. “You can’t just absorb all of Mac’s trauma and have nowhere to let it go.” 

* * *

Mac pulls Bozer aside the second they get on the Phoenix jet. They don’t have their comms live yet, and this is the first time they’ve been really alone since Leanna joined them at the Phoenix. 

“Boze, that’s your girlfriend, isn’t it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mac. We went to spy school together for three _whole weeks._ News flash, people only fall in love that fast in the movies.” He glances past Mac to where Leanna and Riley are comparing their fake wedding photos, and the expensive-looking rings they got to pick out from the Phoenix’s disguises department. The plain gold band on Mac’s finger feels itchy, he keeps twisting it around and he’s kind of afraid he’s going to pull it off and lose it. _I wonder how pissed Phoenix will be if I end up using it for something._ Although it’s more likely he’d need the real diamond that’s part of Riley’s.

“Boze, we both know you can’t lie to me.” Mac shakes his head. “Come on, out with it. And by the way, she seems amazing.” 

“Well, if I _was_ hypothetically dating a woman I was never supposed to talk to again in my life, I’d say thank you.” Bozer’s chewing on his lip, fiddling with his own ring while he watches Leanna and Riley laughing together about something in one of the pictures. “Mac, I can’t tell you anything.”

Mac puts a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Boze, you know me. I would never ever betray your secrets. Not to Matty, not to anyone. You’ve kept mine for years.”

“And I can’t watch you get in trouble for mine.” Bozer sighs. “Mac, if we get caught, Matty is going to go after everyone who knows anything, and the more you know the worse it’s going to be. I’m already dragging Riley down with me.” He sits down, looking out the window, and Mac notices that his eyes look glossy with tears. “I never meant for it to be this much trouble.”

“Bozer, you’re not a problem.”

“I am if I get you all fired. Or court-martialed. Or even worse thrown back in prison. Mac, I felt bad enough knowing you became a vigilante because of my little brother, knowing that’s why they locked you up the first time. I can’t let that happen because you kept a secret about my girlfriend. Who isn’t my girlfriend, for the record.”

“Bozer, you do realize you’ve admitted it to me already?” Mac says, trying to smile a little. “And I really don’t think Matty’s going to send us all to prison.” _She wouldn’t, right?_ “Now why don’t you introduce us properly?” He’s noticed that Leanna’s been avoiding him. _It makes sense. I was the only one of us who wasn’t in on the secret, and she probably didn’t want to make me suspicious._

“I guess so.” Bozer barely even cracks a smile.

“Boze, stop worrying. We’re gonna do this op, and it’s going to be fine, and Matty will never be any the wiser.” 

Bozer stands up and walks over to where the girls are sitting, Mac trailing behind him. “Leanna, this is Mac. My best friend.” There’s something unreadable in Leanna’s eyes when she looks up at him, and Mac’s beginning to reassess his idea that she was avoiding him because she was trying not to get outed as Bozer’s girlfriend. _It’s something about me that’s bothering her._ _Is it because she knows who I really am?_ He’s not sure how much Bozer told her about him, if he mentioned the vigilante work or the arrest or the prison time. 

“It’s nice to meet you, Mac.” She barely makes eye contact before turning back to Riley. Bozer seems oblivious to the awkwardness, he’s got a goofy grin that seems to have come on in proximity with Leanna.

Mac steps aside and sits down, hoping to catch a couple hours’ sleep on the flight. He’s not going to bother Bozer with any suggestion that Leanna seems cool and withdrawn around him. _He really likes her, and I’m not going to wreck it for him._ And he’s sure, in time, he can win her over, just like he did Jack or Matty. _I know my past is a deal breaker for a lot of people. But the truth is so much more complicated than it seems._ And maybe this mission will be the perfect chance to prove he’s more than the criminal his record claims he is. 

* * *

Being grounded sucks. Jack walks out of the Phoenix to his car, wishing he was on the plan with the rest of his team headed to France. He’s set up an appointment with the therapist, like Matty insisted, and now he has nothing better to do but cool his heels around the apartment with Mickey until the team gets back. His landlord tentatively agreed that as a service dog, Mickey could be permitted in the apartment, and Mac and Jack have both spent their fair share of time lately talking to someone who never asks any questions and always seems to know when a good lick to the face is an appropriate response. 

He’s trying to decide if the leftover sloppy joe in the fridge is fit for human consumption or needs to be relegated to Mickey’s lunch bowl when he sees it. Mac’s taken to using Jack’s kitchen counter as a workspace, which is fine as long as he respects the boundary around the toaster and the microwave. And right now, said workspace is covered with stacks of messily jotted notes, all with lilies of the valley doodled in the corners. 

 _That’s been stressing Mac out for weeks._ Jack really hates the way that even long gone, the kid’s dad is playing mind games and making Mac feel inferior. _He deserves better._ But to stop the game, they’re going to have to find James. And maybe Jack can help with that. 

It’s a bit of a drive to the Phoenix safehouse where they’ve stashed Elwood Davis after the Mareks incident, but Jack has nothing better to do with his day, and it’s nice to run the old Shelby on some highway once in a while. Mickey’s eating up the chance to sit in the passenger seat, and Jack doesn’t mind a little dog hair on the upholstery, just this once. 

The house is nice, set back in the suburbs on a quiet little street. Jack parks and gets out, leaving Mickey in the car and walking up the little paved path to the front door. When he rings the doorbell, there’s a scuffling sound inside, and then he hears the footsteps as Elwood walks up to the door and is presumably checking the peephole. _Good to see he’s following safehouse protocol_.

“Jack?”

“We need to talk. Official Phoenix business.” Jack knows that will get him in the door, and sure enough, it does. Elwood undoes what sounds like about five different locks and then waves him inside. 

“Long time, no see, Jack. To what do I owe this dubious pleasure? It’s not about Riley, is it?”

“No. She’s fine. Matter of fact she’s married.” Jack enjoys watching the shock spread across Elwood’s face. “Just temporarily.” Elwood looks suitably confused, and Jack counts that as a win. _Probably technically not allowed to share confidential operation details, but the look on his face was kind of worth it._ “I need your help with a little project.” Jack shrugs. “We’ve hit a dead end looking for Mac’s old man, and…”

“No. Jack, I am not getting mixed up in this James MacGyver mess again.” Elwood moves toward the door, but Jack blocks him, leaning casually against the doorframe. 

“News flash, you’re already involved. Or did you conveniently forget the guy trying to kill you because of that?”

“I did not forget. That’s why I’m here instead of with my daughter in LA. And I was _not_ planning on coming back until James was in a steel cage.” 

“Your man Morty had some fingers in the wrong pie. Enough so to get Mareks’s attention. I think he knows more than he told us last time. But Riley’s not around to play hardball with him, so…”

“So you called me to go shake down my informant. Again. Jack, I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t greet me at the door with a shotgun.” Elwood shakes his head. “I want no part of this.”

“Listen. The sooner we get James in cuffs, the sooner you can show your face on the streets again, and the sooner you get to get back to patching things up with Riley. So how ‘bout it?” 

“Okay. Fine.” Elwood frowns. “But you’d better not get me killed back in L.A.” 

Elwood opens the passenger door, and Jack shakes his head. “No, you get in the back. That’s Mickey’s seat.” Jack grins, and watches the dog curl himself on the passenger seat, looking up at both of them with those huge innocent eyes even Elwood can’t say no to. “Now, tell me everything you can possibly think of that Morty might know.” 

* * *

Mac leans on the railing of a porch that overlooks miles of vineyards and lush farmland. This place is beautiful, but that’s not really the reason he’s out here instead of inside where Bozer and Leanna are still mingling. 

He gets that slightly drunk honeymooners aren’t a threat to him, but some of the subtle innuendos they’ve been joking about sound too much like things he’s heard whispered as threats and promises through cell bars. 

“You okay?” Riley asks. She’s followed him out, it would look suspicious if they didn’t stay close together. Mac’s already afraid his lack of enthusiasm when it comes to physical affection is going to blow their covers. Bozer’s always got an arm around Leanna’s waist, or they’re standing so close that if they got any closer they’d be one person, or Leanna’s leaning in to give him a swift peck on the cheek. 

“I will be.” He’s glad it’s Riley he’s with. She’s known him a long time, she knows what to avoid doing. Her hands have stayed on her clutch person or around the stem of a glass the whole time. He hates to think how bad things could get if someone who didn’t know him, trying to sell the honeymooners cover, put an arm around his waist unexpectedly. 

“Do you want to leave?” Riley asks, running a finger around the rim of her glass. 

“Not really.” They’re still waiting for Omar and Mia to show up, they’re running late even though they literally have a private jet to bring them here. He can’t leave Bozer and Leanna to work the con alone. 

“Mac, I get that sometimes a mission doesn’t seem like a problem until you get into it…”

“This isn’t a problem.” Mac looks back at the couples laughing and chattering at the tables and bar. He’s honestly probably safer here than almost anywhere else. _Everyone’s already happily paired off, at least for the moment._ “I’ll be fine.” 

“Good, because I think the assignment just arrived.” Riley switches her comms live. “Hey, guys, time to meet the happy couple.” 

Mia and Omar are walking in, flanked by four very imposing and burly guards. But that’s not the biggest problem. No. The biggest problem is the fact that Mia is shouting at the top of her lungs, and sounds absolutely furious. 

“Uh-oh. Looks like the happy couple's not so happy.”

Mia’s voice is sharp enough to carry clearly out to the balcony. Mac’s pretty sure no one inside the room will be able to hear, not over the chatter and the clinking glasses. But isolated from the crowd, he and Riley have the perfect vantage point. And neither Omar or his guards have noticed they’re there.

“A weekend? What, you mean two days? But you promised!” Mia snaps.  

Omar holds up his hands defensively. “Please, don't make a scene. I'll make it up to you, baby, I swear.”

“Don't "baby" me. It's ten days. Ten days.

“Are they arguing about what I think they're arguing about?” Bozer asks. He and Leanna have stopped talking, still holding hands but clearly listening in over the comms. 

Riley holds up her phone, she hacked into the resort’s booking system while Mac and Bozer were checking in earlier. “Yeah, afraid so. Omar just cut their trip short. Looks like our ten-day window just shrank to two.”

“Two days to get lover boy to give up the location of his terrorist father? Is that even possible?” Bozer asks. 

Riley sighs. “With ten days, it was a long shot. With 48 hours? I don't know.”

“Come on. We'll talk about it at the bar,” Omar says, and Mia follows him with a huff, ordering herself a large glass of wine and sitting down at a table in a corner, where she stares out the window with a disinterested anger.

“That's a big glass of wine. She's pissed,” Leanna observes.

“Yeah. Not exactly a good time to make an introduction.” Mac glances at Riley. “Any chance we could do something digital?” 

“Not gonna happen. Can't get onto either of their phones. Omar's digital security is stronger than the four thugs he brought with him. If we want him to talk about Dad, we're just gonna have get him to tell us himself.”

“Well, back to making a conversation with him, then.”

Bozer cuts in over comms. “Or, we can bring the party boy to us.” Mac glances at Riley, and she shrugs. Both of them step back off the balcony and head toward where Bozer’s leaning over the bar, chatting with the woman behind it. “Hey. This Chardonnay's great and all, but y'all got anything stronger?”

“Oui, monsieur. We also make our own champagne, cognac and single malt whiskey.” The woman says proudly. 

“Perfect. Two shots of whiskey.” Bozer takes one glass and hands the other to Leanna. “Back in my club days, this was my move. Get the party started and let the ladies come to me.”

Leanna grins. “There were club days? You had moves?” 

Mac cuts in beside them, shaking his head. “If by ‘club’, he means the back room of Weathers’s garage where the mechanics all brought girlfriends and six packs of beer on Friday nights, then yeah. There were club days.” 

Leanna shakes her head, but she’s smiling, and Mac wonders if he misread whatever was in her eyes before. Because she doesn’t seem to distrust him. _Maybe she thought I was going to be upset that Bozer’d kept his girlfriend a secret from me._ But he’s made an effort to talk to her, on the plane and in the car on the way here, and she seems nothing but kind and genuine. Although he’s fairly sure she doesn’t know much about his past. _I wonder if Bozer lied to her about me the way he lied to me about her._ Maybe he didn’t want to let on that he’s close friends with a former convict. _That’s fine by me, I’d rather she didn’t know._  

“Keep 'em coming,” Bozer says, then hands the bartender a stack of cash. “You know what? Just leave the bottle. Yeah, just give me that. Thank you.”

“Are we sure that drinking on the job is a good idea?” Leanna whispers. 

“Absolutely not. That's why I bought this.” Mac pulls the small vial out of his jacket pocket. 

“Eye drops?”

“Actually, alcohol dehydrogenase.”

“Oh…” Leanna smiles knowingly. “Nice.”

“And for those of us who are not complete and total science nerds?” Bozer asks. 

Leanna grins. “Alcohol dehydrogenase is the enzyme that breaks down the alcohol in your bloodstream.”

Mac holds up the small bottle. “But with a few household items, and an hour that I spent in the lab, I was able to make enough to make sure that none of us actually get drunk.” He adds a bit to each of the shot glasses. “All right. Cheers?”

“Cheers.” Riley clinks her glass against his, and all of them swallow quickly. 

“By the way, the hangover's gonna make you wish you were dead,” Mac mumbles. _Bozer and I learned that the hard way. At Weathers’s garage, when Boze may or may not have bet the biggest mechanic in the shop he could drink more beer faster, and both of us were actually underage..._ It had seemed like a good idea at nine o’clock at night. _I just wanted to see if it worked. Worst application of the scientific method ever._  

Riley grimaces, then hands the bartender her phone. “Here. Can you play this for me? Thank you.”

“What's that?” Mac asks. 

Riley grins. “A little trick from someone who _actually_ had club days.” 

An upbeat song comes on, and Riley grins, grabbing Mac’s hand gently and pulling him back from the bar to where she’s started dancing. “I really can’t…” Mac starts. It’s true, he trips over his own feet on a semi-daily basis, he can’t dance. 

“Mac, everyone’s drunk, no one can dance in here,” Riley whispers. “Just have fun.” Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Omar and Mia looking their way. He grins and spins Riley around, catching her when she fake stumbles and pulling her back toward Bozer and Leanna. 

“I think I’m too sober for this,” he says loudly. “We gonna do another round?”

Bozer nods and pours out four new glasses. 

“Make that two more,” Omar says, and Bozer obliges happily. 

“Cheers!” Leanna says, and the glasses clink together. 

“Do one more,” Mia suggests. _She wants to get drunk, to let loose, to go a little crazy._

“You want another one?” Bozer asks. “Alright, coming right up.”

Mia laughs, Omar grabs another glass of his own, and Mac really, really hopes this works. _Otherwise the hangover’s going to be for nothing._  

* * *

MORTY’S HOUSE

HE DIDN’T MEET THEM WITH A SHOTGUN. THAT’S THE GOOD NEWS

“No, no, no. Not you again.” Morty growls. “I swear I’m gonna move so you people can’t find me anymore.” 

“You’ve been saying that for years, Mort.” Elwood shakes his head. “Come on, we just want to talk.”

“I don’t want no part of this, Woody.” Morty holds out his hands like he’s warding off some kind of evil spirit. “Listen, I told your daughter everything I know!”

“Maybe you don’t know what you know.” Elwood and Morty both give Jack confused frowns. “Listen. You seen this design before?” Jack holds out the photo of the lily of the valley from Ellen MacGyver’s headstone.

“No, I…” Suddenly, his face changes. 

“Okay, go on,” Jack prompts. 

“Not out here.” Morty pulls them inside, and Jack sneezes on the smell of smoke that this house never seems to be free of. “I’ve seen them flowers someplace, give me a minute…” He pauses, then rushes over to a crowded desk overflowing with papers, empty packs of Camels, and pieces of things Jack is pretty sure are remains of past lunches. “James is too careful to leave paper trails now.” Morty scrabbles across his desk, holding out a sheet of paper with mustard stains on it. “But when he was dealing under the table _and_ working for the government, he had to find a way to cover up the money he was making.” 

“Money laundering.” Jack takes the paper, it’s a list of payments made to a company called Valley Technical Solutions by a string of generic sounding names. The kinds of names Jack’s seen pop up as false covers for terrorists and international arms dealers. 

“Valley Tech catered to a very exclusive clientele, supposedly offered advanced workplace security technologies, and went under, interestingly enough, within a month of James MacGyver’s disappearance.” Morty spreads some photos and random papers across the top of the mess on the desk. “The business itself was owned under a false name, R. J. Masters. But a little asking around and some slightly...creatively acquired security footage proved that R.J. Masters is none other than James MacGyver.” 

“He had _that_ _mustache?_ And no one thought he was a total creep?” Jack asks, looking at the blurry stills from an old security tape. He’s actively trying to forget his own less than wise facial hair choices. _Hey, I was younger. And undercover._  

But all this isn’t telling him what’s so damned important about the lily of the valley carving. “And this relates to our information how, exactly?”

Morty holds up a business card with an exaggerated flourish. The block print reads VALLEY TECHNICAL and has a phone number printed below it. But what catches Jack’s attention isn’t the writing. There’s a familiar floral design watermarked in the upper left corner. 

He pockets the card. “Okay, Elwood, let’s go pay a visit to our friendly neighborhood money laundering front.” 

* * *

It’s been a long day, and Riley’s starting to feel the effects of Mac’s promised killer hangover already. But they’re still at the dinner table with Omar and Mia, so she’s keeping the smile plastered on.

Mac looks almost as miserable as she feels. Drunk Omar hasn’t told them anything about his father’s location yet, but he doesn’t really have a filter when it comes to some other aspects of this trip. Leanna’s given Riley more than one disgusted glance already. _Not really dinner table conversation._  

On the plus side, she’s into Mia’s phone. Taking a selfie at the wine presses earlier and asking to tag her in it gave her an excuse to send both the photo and a crawler virus to Mia’s accounts. So far, she’s got nothing aside from a bunch of truly cringeworthy Snapchat exchanges with Omar, and an unbelievable amount of selfies. _Guess Omar doesn’t like to share the family business._ And he’s a lot harder to crack. 

Mia chinking a knife against her glass makes Riley’s headache throb and pulls her back to the conversation at hand. 

“We didn't get to do any of this at our wedding, 'cause we got married in a pool. So let's agree every time someone clinks a glass, everyone needs to kiss, okay?” Omar pulls her in, kisses her fiercely, then leans back in his chair.  

“Okay.” Riley glances at Mac, who looks slightly trapped and very much like he wants to get up from the table and run. 

“All right,” Leanna says. 

“Yeah. Sounds fun.” Bozer also looks slightly terrified. 

“Okay, we kissed, your turn,” Mia says. She’s looking right at Mac and Riley. 

“I will make this as painless as possible, Mac. I promise,” she whispers. 

Riley leans forward and kisses him gently on the cheek, and he does the same. He seems as comfortable with that as he can be with physical affection, and she pulls back gently.

“That's cute,” Leanna says. “Look at them, they’re so precious.” She turns to Bozer. “Us?” 

“Uh, yeah, I guess us.”

Their kiss is everything Mac and Riley’s was definitely not. Genuine, passionate, and very much uninhibited. 

“Oh, look at that.” Omar smiles, laughing. He’s on his third glass and he’s very, very drunk. 

 _We’ve got to get him talking, but as long as Mia’s here, he’s totally focused on her._ “Clink again!” He says, and then promptly just kisses Mia again without bothering with the glasses at all.

“Why not?” Bozer says, and kisses Leanna again. Riley gives Mac a sympathetic, sad smile, and another gentle kiss. 

“Let's keep clinking, huh?” Omar asks.

“Oh, look at that,” Riley cuts in, grabbing her napkin off the table to over-dramatically swipe at Mac’s cheek. “I think I’ve rubbed off all my lipstick.” She grins and stands up. “I need to go put on a fresh coat. Girls?”

“Sure, I’m coming,” Leanna says. 

“I like your lipstick, it tastes like pineapple,” Bozer says, and Riley’s not sure if he’s pretending to be drunk or if getting to kiss his girlfriend with no fear of getting in trouble has actually gone to his head. 

Mia gets up as well, and Riley breathes a tiny sigh of relief. _Now maybe Mac and Bozer can have an actual conversation with Omar._

She pulls the conversation toward meeting the family once she and Leanna and Mia are out of earshot of the table. “I was so worried about meeting his mom. His dad’s been gone for years, so he and his mom were super close, and I was afraid she might think I wasn’t good enough. I mean, how does a social media consultant belong in the same room as an MIT grad?But then  we got to the house, and she was so sweet to me. It was amazing.”

“That is awesome.” Mia pulls a dark flesh tone lipstick out of her clutch and studies her reflection in the mirror, pausing to adjust some wayward strands of hair. 

“That's so sweet. I met his parents right before we got engaged. I was so nervous.” Leanna chuckles. “But now his mom and dad actually like me more than they like him.”

“That’s fantastic.” Riley giggles, pulling out her own lipstick. Jack calls it mauve and says that’s the best color on her. _I always think it’s adorable when he knows the exact name for a color, and he compliments my lipstick or my nails or a dress._ It’s not what people typically imagine as a dad thing, but she finds it endearing that he pays attention to her like that. “So, how'd it go meeting Omar's parents?” 

“Uh, I haven't.” There’s an odd stutter in Mia’s voice all of a sudden. _Another fight she’s had with Omar? Maybe he’s trying to keep her away from that side of his life._ “Yeah, his mom's dead. I think.”

“Oh, my gosh.” Riley says. “I’m sorry.”

“What about his dad?” Leanna asks, checking her mascara in the mirror and flipping her hair over her shoulder, twisting a section of it casually around her finger. 

“I don't know. We've only been dating, what, three months?”

“Oh, wow!” Riley laughs. “I mean, Mac wanted to marry me after one-month anniversary, even tried to pop the question right there, but that was a little too fast for me.” _Actually that’s the furthest thing from Mac’s real personality I can think of._ She can tell this cover’s one of the hardest things he’s ever done. _He’s putting a good face on it, but this forced affection is exactly the kind of thing that scares him._  

She’s trying not to touch him more than she has to, and she feels the, at this point, instinctive shrinking away from contact when she puts an arm around his waist or a hand on his arm. _I’m so sorry, Mac._ And he knows her well enough that he _knows_ she would never hurt him. Ever. _What’s going to happen if he ever has someone new, tries to genuinely have a relationship?_  

She swallows hard, but finishes touching up her lipstick and then turns to Mia. “Ready to go back and wow them?”

The men are talking when they step out of the bathroom, and Riley can hear snatches of it. 

“...eed to keep...father happy, too.” Omar is shrugging, swirling his glass around so much the wine is sloshing over the edges. 

“Come on, it’s your life,” Bozer says. “You can’t be his little boy forever, right? What’s he going to do, come down here and grab you Mafia style and take you back home?”

Omar tenses. 

“Come on, he wouldn’t come all the way from Serbia for that, would he?” Mac asks, chuckling forcedly. _Good thing Omar was so forthcoming with his family background, at least in location._ He’d been bragging up his family’s compound during the entire second course. 

“But he is not back home in Serbia. You wouldn't believe where he is.” Riley stops. _This is it. We’re about to get the location._ She turns and reaches for Mia’s arm, about to ask her a question and stall her, but the woman pushes past her in a suddenly brusque way and throws herself onto Omar’s lap, effectively ending the conversation. 

“Did you miss us?” She kisses Omar deeply, and then starts tugging at his arm. “Let's go back to the room.”

Riley watches Mac and Bozer’s faces fall. Omar stands up, chuckling. “Guys, we are going to go back to our room. There is a...movie we need to watch.” He laughs and swings a hand over the table. “And we're doing all of this all over again tomorrow.”

Bozer chuckles weakly. “Yes we are. You know it.”

There’s a chorus of goodnights from the table as the couple wobbles drunkenly off, and then Leanna sets her napkin on the table and sighs deeply. “Seriously? We’ve got to do this again?”

Riley nods, then regrets it. Her head is killing her. “I think we need to go too, babe.” She pulls Mac up, and leans her head on his shoulder as they walk toward the room. It’s not exactly comfortable, despite the layers of cloth in Mac’s suit, Riley can still feel the boniness of his shoulder. _Jack’s been so worried about him, ever since Murdoc._ Mac’s tried to brush off both the bullet wound and the things she knows Murdoc must have said, but Riley knows it’s not going to be that easy. _He was always there for me to talk to after Lemaire._ She’d be more than happy to return the favor, but she knows Mac likes to deal with his problems himself, and she doesn’t want to push him and make him even less likely to share them with her. _I have to let him come to me when he’s ready._  

She falls into bed without even bothering to take off her dress, just her shoes. _When you’ve been at this as long as I have, you can fall asleep in anything._ This dress isn’t nearly as tight as the one she wore in Dubai, and she slept the whole way home on the jet in that. _Granted, I’d also been awake for thirty-six hours straight._

She wakes up abruptly, in what feels like the middle of the night, to a sound she was all too afraid of hearing. She scrambles out of bed and hurries over to where Mac is lying on the couch. 

Mac is crying. “No, stop, please.” He’s pushed the blanket he had over him down to the end of the couch, and his hands are held out protectively in front of him. “No. I don’t want to. Please, don’t do this, please.” Riley kneels beside the couch. She doesn’t dare touch him, knowing what his nightmares likely involve. 

 _It’s so unfair that he’s so kind and gentle and young and he suffers from more trauma and nightmares than me and Jack combined._ Riley always knew her job was going to leave her with a lot of mental scars. And people usually expect Jack, the war veteran, to be walking around with PTSD. _Both of us have legitimized reasons for this._ But people seem to treat Mac’s trauma differently because of where he got it. _They act like because he was supposedly a criminal, he deserves it._ Just because Mac got his PTSD behind walls and barbed wire instead of on the front lines of a war or in a terrorist torture room, people don’t want to hear about it. 

Riley hears plenty of information on PTSD in the military and post-discharge, and she had a whole course on trauma in covert ops at the Farm, but no one talks about it when the setting is prison. Just like no one wants to talk about the horrible things that gave Mac that trauma in the first place. _As soon as they put him behind bars, they labeled him as less than human. Less deserving of compassion or kindness_. 

But he’s not there anymore, and he has a team who cares and supports him. Who makes him remember he matters. At least she hopes they’re doing a good enough job of it. “Hey. Mac. It’s alright. It’s just a dream.”

Mac huddles up tightly, clutching his knees to his chest. He’s going to fall off the couch at this rate. “Stop!” His voice is a rasping cry. “ _Please!”_

“Mac!” She wants to shake him, pull him out of the horrors inside his head, but she can’t. _Not as likely to have my elbow dislocated as I am when it’s Jack stuck in a nightmare, but I don’t want to scare him any worse._ “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. I’m right here. No one is going to touch you.” 

Mac’s eyes fly open, and he tries to sit up, only to tumble off the couch because of the awkward position he’s managed to curl himself into. He crashes onto the floor in a tangle of couch cushions and blankets. 

“Mac…” Riley ventures softly. Mac blinks up at her from where he’s curled on the floor, eyes pitifully wide and frightened.

“Riley?”

* * *

Mac’s not quite sure how he ended up on the floor, but this is _not_  a good place to be. His shoulder twinges sharply, falling to the ground must have aggravated the not completely healed injury. His sleep-twisted mind is still telling him he’s lying on the warehouse floor, alone with Murdoc, as that psychopath runs his hands over Mac’s body and prods at the wound, a sick, sadistic smile on his face the whole time. Mac scrambles backward, kicking the couch cushions and blankets away from him and pushing himself back on the half-disassembled couch.

He’s breathing so fast he’s afraid he might hyperventilate, and he wants Jack, but Jack isn’t here. Riley, kneeling in front of him, has almost the same look of concern on her face, though. _It really seems like they are related by more than just chance._ “Hey, it’s alright.” 

Mac takes a deep breath, trying to get everything under control. His head aches, and that little concoction he used to avoid getting drunk is making the world spin. _I almost wish I was drunk._ At least then he’d be able to blame the uncontrollable dreams on a chemical incapacitation. He’d be able to convince himself they wouldn’t come back. 

He lowers his still-aching head into his hands and sighs. He was hoping that someday this was going to get better, that he’d learn to get a handle on all the fear and pain and control it, instead of it controlling him. _I am getting better at dealing with it when I’m awake._ It’s just the terrible dreams that he really struggles with now.

He looks up at Riley sadly. “I’m sorry…”

“For what? Having a normal human reaction to trauma?” Riley asks. 

“Waking you up, actually.” He tries to make it funny but the joke falls completely flat. 

“After Murdoc, I’d be worried if you _weren’t_ having nightmares.” Riley blows a long breath between tightly pursed lips. “I read the reports, Mac. Jack’s was…” Mac can only imagine what the man had to say about this op. _Probably a lot about how he wants to kill Murdoc slowly and then bring him back to life so he can kill him again_. “Well, he didn’t really spare the details.” 

Mac shudders. It was bad enough when he was sure Murdoc was going to spend the rest of his life locked away, somewhere he could never touch Mac. _I’ll never forget what he said to me that time he was trying to teach me how to be him._ About how people who...who’d taken Mac for themselves years ago still enjoyed the memories of him. _Murdoc would be just the kind to do that._ Mac tries not to think about the man finding that twisted pleasure in his imagination. But with Murdoc escaped and walking around a free man, Mac has much more to worry about than being part of someone’s imagined horrors. _Murdoc’s already proved he can find me whenever he wants._

 _Even staying with Jack scares me in its own way._ Murdoc seemed to enjoy watching Jack’s anger, horror, and grief after Mac was shot, but Mac has no doubt the assassin would take out anyone who tried to stand between him and Mac, and Jack is good but Mac is still afraid for him. _All it would take would be letting his guard down once._ Jack’s dealing with his own set of nightmares, and it makes him more vulnerable. _I’d never forgive myself if trying to protect me got him killed._ More and more of his nightmares lately have been of watching helplessly while Murdoc kills Jack and then comes for him. 

“Mac?” He blinks, Riley is watching him with concern. He realizes he’s spaced out pretty badly, gotten lost in his head. “You okay?” He just shrugs. He’s not okay, he’s so far from okay. But there’s nothing to be afraid of. “Listen. Whatever you need, just tell me. I know I’m not Jack, but...I can try.”

He nods slowly. After his nightmares, Jack usually sits with him, holding onto him, making sure Mac feels protected and guarded from the world. “Can you just...sit with me?” Riley nods, giving him a weak smile as she sits down beside him. 

“Of course.” 

Mac isn’t sure when he falls asleep again, but he wakes up to Riley’s head on his shoulder and the phone ringing in his ear. He grabs it off the coffee table and answers groggily. “Yeah, Matty? What’s up?”

“Where are you guys?” Matty sounds upset.  

“Asleep, like every normal person at 6:00 in the morning.” He wants to go _back_ to sleep, he’s finally not having a nightmare every five seconds. He’s so tired. And his head hurts.

“Well, your targets aren't normal. They're already up, dressed, and on their way to go work out.”

Riley groans, looking at her watch. “We just went to sleep, like, two hours ago.” _It’s really been that long?_ It feels like two minutes. “What are these people made of?” 

“I don't care what they're made of. I care what's inside Omar's head. You've got 24 hours left to get his father's location. So go make it happen.”

Riley gets up, then stumbles, resting her hand on her forehead and grimacing. Mac realizes she’s walked right into the beam of sunlight coming through the windows. “I thought your miracle drops were supposed to keep us from getting drunk.”

“Well, they did. They converted the alcohol into the chemical that causes hangovers. Like I said, you skip the drunk and go right to the hangover.”

“I haven’t had one this bad since I graduated from the Farm.” Riley shakes her head, then winces again. “That was a hell of a night, let me tell you that.”

“Weren’t you like nineteen?” Mac asks. _Right, look who’s asking someone about their underage drinking._ He would laugh at the irony of the laws he’d broken by that age, but he thinks if he makes a sound louder than a whisper his head might explode. 

“You really think someone who’d just learned the fine art of undercover operations couldn’t even make a fake ID?” Riley smiles just a little. “Okay, let’s go kill ourselves trying to keep up with the Joneses. Or the Mitrovices.”

Mac and Riley, as it turns out, are following Mia to the gym for yoga. Unfortunately, Omar is going running. Bozer and Leanna, having both been track runners in high school and also acing that section of the spy school training regimen, are tasked with going after them. Mac feels sorry for them. _They look almost more hungover than Riley and I._  

“Good morning!” The yoga instructor’s bright voice sends a spike of pain through Mac’s skull. “Who’s ready for some headstands?”

In retrospect, Mac wishes he’d been running. Not that the yoga itself is that bad, apparently part of the reason for his and Riley’s massive headaches was their awkward sleeping positions, and a downward dog took some of the tightness out of both their necks. Riley looks a lot better as she goes into a standing pose. 

No, the problem is the overly hands-on instructor. Riley seems to be a natural, maybe she’s even done classes like this before, but it’s all new to Mac. And every time he messes up a pose, the instructor seems determined to physically correct it. Her hands are all over him, and there’s certain poses where that’s really panic-inducing. He’s having trouble listening to Leanna and Bozer over comms when his brain is screaming at him to get out of here, _now._  

“I feel my brain bouncing in my head with every step,” Bozer mumbles.

His comms are tuned to pick up voices around him, so Mac can clearly hear Omar’s cheerful greeting. “Morning! Hey. Glad I caught you guys.”

“Yeah?” Leanna asks. Mac can tell she’s making an effort to sound perky. 

“You guys up for some oysters and vodka later? They're Mia's favorites.”

“What a coincidence. It's our favorite, too. We had a raw bar at our wedding.” Bozer chuckles. He sounds more like himself now. “So, is today really your last day?” 

“Yeah. But trust me, the six of us are gonna make the most of it.” Omar laughs. 

“You can't stay longer? Just call up your dad. Convince him to let you stick around.” Leanna shrugs. “Like, I get controlling parents, but you’re your own man now. You just got married. Screw parents and their expectations.” It sounds like there’s some genuine issues simmering below the surface there. Mac knows family issues when he sees them. Or hears them. 

“I can’t do that. Listen. Let’s not ruin a perfectly good day talking about our families, no?” Omar says. “No more talk about the parents. Deal?”

“Deal.” Bozer’s voice is strained. 

Riley glances over at Mac, upside-down since she’s currently pulling off a perfect headstand. _Now what?_  

* * *

PARKER INVESTMENT STRATEGIES

NOT JAMES’S MONEY LAUNDERING FRONT, BUT STILL SORT OF SHADY

Jack’s never had much patience for stuffed suits in offices. Especially not ones who are trying to sell him on a clearly overly-hyped investment scheme. _I may be a farm hick, but I got enough brains to know this ain’t exactly legit._  

The man he’s talking to, who accosted him the second he stepped through the door, clearly doesn’t have enough brains to know Jack isn’t here for the financial planning aspects. “Listen, man, I have been trying to tell you for the past ten minutes. I am _not_ interested in any of your investment plans. All I want to know is anything you can tell me about the previous owner.” 

“Uh...that’s not really my thing. I just started here.” _You oughta quit._ “I guess I could send you to talk to the department manager.” 

“Okay. Just point me in the right direction.” The man does, and Jack tells the receptionist in the tiny little fishbowl cubicle outside the office that he’s here for the manager and it’s about the building lease. He flashes her his building inspector badge, one of several he keeps handy in his wallet for occasions like this. _Building inspector, cop, and CDC are my go-tos._

“Okay, Mr. Crane. He’ll be with you in just a moment.”

She waits until her phone buzzes to open the door and let him in. A tall, thin man with a receding hairline and clearly dyed-black hair stands up. “What can I do for you, Mr. Crane?”

Jack launches his best cog-in-the-bureaucratic-wheel imitation. “We’re going through a backlog of complaints that have been bouncing around our system, and one of them was for this address, for a company called Valley Technical. Apparently there were some wiring issues.” 

“I’m sorry. This building hasn’t been owned by Valley Technical since the 2000s.” The man frowns. “Parker Investment Strategies has been here for the past five years.”

“Well, I guess that was a really old complaint then. So, it seems you’re gonna have to have the wiring in three of these rooms completely replaced. Major fire hazard. I’m surprised this place hasn’t burned down yet.” Jack looks around, then sniffs. “Yep. There’s scorched wiring somewhere in here.”

Usually that scare tactic works, and buys him at least a couple hours to search an evacuated building. But this guy doesn’t seem to be falling for it.

“We had this building inspected when we first moved it. It was clearly up to code.” He’s glaring at Jack with cold grey eyes. “I’d like to see some proof of this complaint.”

“Of course. Paperwork’s in the car.” _Damn it. These shady types know a con when they see one._ He’s going to have to come up with another way to get access to this place. 

That also means he’s going to have a shorter window of time to search. If he can narrow down the right place, it might help. _James couldn’t expect Mac to turn this place top to bottom, looking for a clue. He would have left some kind of message._

The receptionist is clearly eyeing him up when he steps out and closes the door. _This could work in my favor._ He leans over the desk. “Well, seems your boss there would be perfectly happy to let this whole place burn down around our ears, while he’s waiting for us to get all the boxes checked off.”

Her eyes widen. “What’s wrong?”

“Some faulty wiring. Real bad. I can smell the scorching from here.” He sniffs. All he can actually smell is a huge noseful of this woman’s overpowering perfume, and he almost sneezes. “Damn, it’s actually stronger out here.” 

“You think we’re in danger?”

“Well, I’d suggest taking an early lunch.” He grins. “I’m about to take lunch myself. How do you feel about Italian?”

Twenty minutes later, he’s at a table in a hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant with a plate of breadsticks and a house salad, and he’s pretty sure this woman is more interested in eating him alive than anything on the menu she’s pretending to study. _In retrospect, this might have been a bad idea._

“So, your job seems pretty...dangerous.” Rosie, she still has her nametag on, twists a strand of hair around her fingers. There’s a predatory gleam in her brown eyes. “All those unsafe buildings. It takes someone pretty brave to go inside them, right?”

“Well, you were working in one. Eight hours a day is a lot more time than I ever spend in them.” Jack is actively hoping he doesn’t throw up. _Normally I can flirt just fine._ But he had dinner with Diane two days ago, and she actually kissed him when he left her at her door. A real kiss, the good kind that lasts a few minutes and gets a little sticky. _Not messin’ that up. Not even for an op._ Plus, this woman is so not his type.

“Well, I didn’t know it was...But I guess you’re right. You know, being a desk secretary is actually a pretty exciting profession.” She leans in closer. “We even had a break in. I mean, it was at night, but still. Someone actually broke into our office!”

“When was this?” Jack is suddenly intrigued, and not by Rosie. Fortunately, she doesn’t seem to care what he finds fascinating. He gave her a chance to talk and she’s taking it. 

“About...oh, two months ago? The alarm was tripped, but by the time police arrived, no one was in the building.”

“Anything taken?”

“No. all our secure file rooms were completely untouched.” The woman shrugs. “The janitor’s closet had been opened up and some of the stuff moved around, but nothing was taken. I’m guessing it was either a junkie or some of those college kids on a dare or a pledging thing or something.” 

 _James broke in, left a clue, and then made sure that if the right people came asking, they’d be told which room he got into._ Jack really, really hates this guy. This is a much too elaborate game of “Where in the World is James MacGyver” for his taste. _It seems like overkill at this point._ But he can’t forget Mac’s stories about the crazy puzzles his father would make him solve in order to get something as simple as having a favorite toy returned to him. _He said James would hide something and make him follow a set of clues to get it back._ Apparently this time, he’s just hidden himself. And this game is pissing Jack off. _He doesn’t get to play with my kid’s head like that._

Jack almost hopes this clue is the final piece of the puzzle, the last thing that leads them to James, because it would almost be worth it to quietly pop a couple bullets in that guy and bury the body off the grid somewhere. _I really, really don’t want to let him near Mac again._

“Hey, you look a little preoccupied. How ‘bout we take this to go?” Rosie reaches over the table and runs her fingers over his hand. 

Jack jumps up. “Uh, I gotta hit the road. Nice knowing you.” He tosses a twenty on the table and bolts, grabbing a couple of breadsticks as he goes. _Good thing I didn’t give her my real name…_  

* * *

TEN HOURS LEFT BEFORE OMAR’S PLANE LEAVES

NO CLOSER TO FINDING HIS FATHER

Leanna leans her head on her hands. The headache she’s had since last night is threatening to take her down. Not even interrogation training was this bad. _Maybe we should suggest to Glover that we start that twenty-four hours with a hangover._  

Thinking about that interrogation drags her mind back to the agent pacing in the corner of the room. Angus MacGyver is definitely not what she expected. From Bozer, she’d heard the story of a determined vigilante, someone out to get justice his way. From the files, she’d seen a hardened criminal, a guy who spent two years of a life sentence in solitary more than out of it, for violent, vicious fights. But Angus MacGyver is none of those things. He’s kind, shy, considerate, and fairly quiet unless someone gets him started on a science ramble. 

But there are things that do throw some red flags. Not in a dangerous way, more in the way Leanna saw in some of the other kids in the foster homes she bounced through a lifetime ago. Flinching from noises and touch, avoiding people he doesn’t know, trying to disappear when the attention is on him. And she’s noticed that Riley doesn’t have her hands on him very often. Leanna and Bozer have been practically glued together this whole weekend, and _they’re_ the ones who have to try not to sell this too hard. Riley confines her hands to Mac’s arms or shoulders. There’s something there, something Leanna could pin down if her pounding head would just calm down for a moment or two. 

Matty Webber’s voice is not helping the whole situation. “All right, honeymooners, I want to hear your plan for getting Omar's father's location, and I want to hear it now.”

“Hate to say it, Matty, but I don't think we're gonna be able to get this guy to talk about his dad anymore without setting off some major alarm bells.” _It doesn’t make sense. Last night, he was ready to air the family’s dirty laundry, he was frustrated and didn’t care what he was saying._ He was also drunk, so maybe that’s part of it, but something seems...different. Different since they came back from the bathroom and Mia dragged Omar off for some private time. 

“Maybe we don't have to. Maybe we can find a way to interrogate Omar right here, right now.” Riley’s rapidly downing glasses of water, it looks like of all of them she’s the one dealing with the hangover best. 

“We just need a window of time where Omar's completely alone.” _And good luck with that. Mia’s a clingy one._ Leanna isn’t sure how they’re going to split up the happy couple. 

Riley nods. “Let me check their schedules. All right, looks like Omar's got a ninety minute in-room massage in forty minutes.”

“Couples massage or solo?” Leanna asks. 

“Solo. Mia signed up for Pilates.”

“Nice. Looks like we found our window.” Mac leans back against the wall, closing his eyes, then shakes his head like that’s something he’s not comfortable doing. _What exactly is going on with him?_  

Bozer frowns. “With Omar's goons posted up outside his suite?” 

“Exactly. Outside his suite. Leaving me and Omar all alone inside.” Leanna says with a faint smile. _This might work._  

“You? Who says you're going?” 

“Omar booked a female masseuse. And Riley's got to be our eyes. Plus, I was number one for interrogation in our class.” She regrets that the second it’s out of her mouth, Bozer glances from her to Mac with a stricken look. _I’m so sorry._ She can’t stop thinking that she used what was clearly a painful and traumatic experience as a threat. It’s little things, but when the rest of the team talks about putting Omar and his father behind bars where they belong, Mac rubs his wrists and stays quiet. When one of the waiters last night brought a carving knife for the main course, Mac flinched away from the glint of light on the blade. _I’m starting to wonder if all those fights were more than just angry outbursts._ She’s learned enough in her criminal justice studies before she joined the CIA to know that prison is a very bad place for someone like Mac. He checks too many of the boxes for being a victim of violence or worse to have come out unscathed. 

Bozer shakes himself slightly, and Leanna does the same. This isn’t the time for these thoughts. “Okay, but we still got two problems: one, what's to stop Omar from yelling for his guards once you start asking questions? And two, how you gonna get that kind of sensitive intel out of him in just ninety minutes?” 

“Actually, I think I just solved both. I just need some stuff from housekeeping.” Mac stands up with the closest thing to a smile Leanna’s seen on his face all day. _How did anyone believe a nerd like this was a hardened killer?_ But she swallows that thought in the face of the next one. _When I saw his file, I believed it too._

Leanna watches as Mac returns with a handful of bottles and starts pouring things into the ice bucket. “Am I gonna interrogate Omar or clean his room?” She’s not really sure how to interact with him. _How much did Bozer tell him about what I said in that room? Is he making nice for the mission but actually pissed at me for all that? I wouldn’t blame him._  

“Technically, with this chloroform, you could do both.”

“Chloroform? Won't that just knock him out?”

“Not if you're careful.” Mac shrugs, and Leanna watches Bozer grinning as his best friend starts to launch into another science spiel. _Is this what they were like?_ It’s not so hard to imagine them as the moonlighting vigilante hero and faithful sidekick. Bozer is the kind of support anyone in the field needs. Honest, dependable, solid and reassuring. _People like Mac and Riley and me, we can burn ourselves out trying to be the heroes the world needs. People like Bozer remind us to be human too._ “Before sodium pentothal was invented, chloroform was actually used as a truth serum. It's all about the dose. Too much, and you'll knock him out. Too little, Omar'll realize what you're doing…” 

“And his guards will come crash the party.” Leanna nods. “Got it. Not too hot, not too cold.”

“Yes, but you’re not exactly gonna be Goldilocks,” Bozer says, grinning. “Come on, I think your disguise is ready.” He holds up a short brunette wig and some facial prosthetics. “Ready to become a whole new woman?”

Leanna sits carefully while Bozer adjusts the false nose and the slight additions to her jaw and forehead. “You weren’t kidding when you said you were good. But I guess you’ve had a lot of practice.”

“Oh you should have seen the first attempts.” Bozer chuckles. “We had to use household ingredients because there was no way I could afford stuff like this. And it either fell off right away, disintegrated in heat or water...or there was that one time we got the alien gills stuck on Mac’s neck and I really didn’t think they were gonna come off.” He shakes his head. 

“Just be glad he’s not sticking tapioca pudding on your face,” Riley says.

“What?”

“Trust me, Amsterdam was a real trip,” Bozer says, chuckling. 

“I’ve heard it’s a wild time, but that’s a new one.”

“Long story short we were playing Mission Impossible, and being disavowed is way more scary than it looks on TV.” Leanna frowns. _No wonder he’s worried we’re going to get caught._ Bozer’s already seen some pretty crazy things in the field. 

About the time Bozer’s done tinting his prosthetics to match Leanna’s exact skin tone, Riley is just hanging up with the front desk. “Okay, my Mia impression worked. Concierge believed I was her and let me cancel Omar's in-room massage. Leanna, you’re clear to swap in as a masseuse.”

Bozer sighs. “I hate that you're going in alone.” _He watched Mac do that for years. No wonder he’s worried._  

“I'll be careful. I'll be on the comms the whole time. I promise you I got this. And I know you've got my back.” She puts a hand gently on his arm. “Now stop jittering, or you’re going to smear the paint.”

He smiles, then steps back. “Actually, I think you’re all set.” She really hopes so. Their success or failure depends on her, and she’s the least experienced agent in this room. _No pressure, right?_  

Leanna tries to keep her expression calm and composed as she walks up to the guards, lugging the massage set along with her.  “Bonjour. I here to give Monsieur Mitrovic massage.” _Faking very broken English is going to make me less of a security threat._ The men simply shrug, and one of them pulls out a scanning wand. _They won’t find anything dangerous on me._ She gives the man a wide, disarming smile when he’s finished. “Merci.” Another guard opens the door, and she steps inside.

“Thank God you’re here. I could really use a little relaxation.” Omar is lounging on a couch, wearing a white robe that he begins to slip off. _Oh please tell me these massages aren’t given in the nude..._ She breathes a tiny sigh of relief when she sees that he still has a pair of boxers. 

“That is what I here for, monsieur.” She notices him release a bit of tension at the sound of her clumsy words. _He’ll tell me a lot more if he thinks I may not even know what he’s saying._  

He lies down on the portable massage table, and she pulls out her chloroform-soaked rag, waving it under his nose. “A little aromatherapy. To begin. For release the tension. Deep breath please.” 

Omar obediently sucks in a strong noseful of the chloroform. “Whoa. That's strong.”

Riley’s voice is reassuring in Leanna’s ear. “Okay, guys, Mia's in the gym. That's 90 minutes on the clock.” 

“How you feel?” Leanna asks quietly, as she steps back. 

“So relaxed.” Omar’s voice is already slurring. “What's in that stuff?”

“House secret, monsieur, I cannot be telling to anyone. Now we try relaxation technique. Just listen to my voice. Let the words wash over you as you sink deeper and deeper.” She pauses, sliding her hands up and down his back, giving him some time to relax. “Tell me about your wife.”

“Mia?” Omar asks, his voice suddenly tensing. _Why?_

“Yes. You love her very much, no?”

“Yes. She is perfect. She is incredible. She is what I needed.”

“I’ve seen you two together, she seems to make you very happy.” 

“You don’t know her at all,” Omar mumbles. Leanna leans in closer. “She is so much more than she pretends to be. So smart. So ambitious. She has big plans for me.” _What is he talking about? Is this why he’s having trouble with his father? Is Mia trying to bring him into her world?_

“She sounds wonderful. She must really love you.”

“Oh, yes. She would kill for me.” Omar says, and Leanna can hear the goofy grin in his voice. “I mean, she did, so…”

 _What?_ That is _not_ the turn she saw this conversation taking. “Really?”

“You have no idea who she is. Who she really is.” His voice quavers. “I was happy with where I was. With my life. But Mia says I can be more. And then after she told me she killed Marco...What am I supposed to do? I cannot tell my father that my wife murdered his favorite son.” He sighs. “How am I supposed to choose between the woman I love and the family I was born into?” 

 _What the hell is happening right now?_ This sounds like the plot of a bad soap opera or something. Leanna realizes she’s stiffened and stopped the massage, and she quickly runs her fingers over Omar’s back again. She can’t afford to blow their cover now. “Riley, are you getting this?” She whispers frantically. _That must be what Mia said to him yesterday. Why he’s so skittish about talking family._  

There’s a pause and lots of typing, and then Riley’s stunned voice. “Guys, Mia McQueen is actually Concetta SantaMaria. Heir apparent to one of the biggest Sicilian mob families.” 

“How did we not know this?” Matty asks. They must have patched her in the second they got this new intel. 

“Her father is more paranoid than most CIA agents. He never let anyone get a picture of her, and he sent her to America when she was five, in the care of a distant family friend, to get her away from a territory war. But I did find a document buried deep on the dark web that references the name change, and a series of highly encrypted messages between the two of them that have been going on for the past five years.” 

“Excuse me a moment, monsieur. Let me prepare the next step of the treatment,” Leanna says, stepping into the bathroom. She leans against the sink, still trying to put all the pieces she knows together. “Mia...or whatever her name really is...knew Marco would never sell out. His family is notoriously proud and independent, and he was every inch his father’s son. So she went after the party boy younger brother, that she could wrap around her little finger.”

Matty sighs. “Took him out, moved Omar legitimately into second in command, and now she probably has her sights set on the father. Gave the family time to accept Omar’s new status, and now she’s going to finish it.” 

“So now what do I do?” Leanna asks.

“This is no longer an interrogation. It’s an extraction. Get Omar out and on the jet back to Phoenix so we can put him with Cage. Any luck, he’ll flip on his father _and_ his wife, and we get two dangerous mobsters for the price of one.”

“Okay, but how am I supposed to get him out of his room four armed guards out front?”

“Uh...guess you’ll just have to take the window instead of the door. Leanna, knock him out, then meet us at the balcony, all right?” Mac sounds like he’s doing that thing where his brain starts getting ahead of his mouth again.  

“But it's a balcony.”

“Yeah, but just go with it,” Bozer says, and she sighs. _This should be fun._

* * *

“You’re seriously asking me to help you break into that building?” Elwood leans on Jack’s counter, shaking his head. “No. As I recall, you’re the one who wants me to clean up my act so I can be around for my daughter instead of doing twenty to life.”

Jack folds up the building schematics he conned out of the city records clerk and sighs. He’s too tired for this, as the mug of coffee on the counter attests. _I swore off the stuff years ago, but some things make a man a little desperate._ “You owe me, Elwood.” 

“For catching the guy who wanted to kill me because of the last time I did a favor for you guys?” Elwood snorts. “I’m pretty sure if it weren’t for you people digging into something better left alone, I wouldn’t have needed your help at all.”

“Listen. James is dangerous. What he does is exactly the kind of thing we come up against in the field.” James clearly has no love for the Phoenix. And from what he’s seen of the man, James is the kind to let the Phoenix burn and leave Mac holding the matches. _If he can’t draw Mac in, I’m afraid he’ll just force him._ “We need to catch him before he puts your daughter and a lot more innocent lives at risk.” 

Elwood sighs, and then Jack hears a knock at the door. He peeks through the peephole and then opens it, it’s Jill.

“Okay, Jack, you said it was an emergency. What’s this all about?”

“I need you to hack a security system.” 

“Is this an op? I thought Matty had you grounded until you went to therapy.” Jill frowns. “Jack...what are you getting yourself into? What are you getting _me_ into?”

“Just a little light B&E. Their security system’s pretty crappy. Won’t take much to make it look like we were never there. It’s just...I have to know what’s in that building.” Jack shrugs. “Here’s the schematics.” He hands over the papers and watches Jill’s frown get even deeper. 

“This is an investment firm. What did they do, scam you?” Jack shakes his head. 

“I’m pretty sure James left the next clue there.” He doesn’t bother to elaborate on the details. It’s sort of need to know. 

“So you want to break in and find out.” 

“I would have asked Riley, but she’s kind of not in the country, and as good as she is, I’m pretty sure she can’t hack an investment firm in LA from a winery in France.” Jill sighs. 

“Fine.” She leans on the counter. “I cannot _believe_ I’m agreeing to help you break the law.”

“For a very good cause.” Jack pours her a mug of coffee, and she doesn’t even bother to check his fridge for milk or the cupboard for sugar before downing it straight. 

“Okay, so once Jill takes down the security cams, I need Elwood to get us past the door locks,” Jack says. “I’d do it myself, but I can’t pick a lock properly with my bad shoulder.” It’s gone stiff, it always does, and his range of motion right now is nil. _Should have been in PT instead of all over the city._ “And if I tried doing it with my other hand, it’ll take too much time, risk someone seeing me.” 

Jill bites her lip and adjusts her glasses. “Are we sure this is the right thing to do?”

“I mean, legally, no. Morally, definitely.” Jack shrugs. “Like Robin Hood. He’s the good guy, you know, even though he was a thief.” 

“It’s not that. It’s…” Jill sighs. “Do you know how many times I’ve caught Mac trying to pull all-nighters in the lab working on one of his dad’s clues? He drinks as much of our coffee as three of our techs combined, and his desk down there is covered with everything he’s learned about his dad since he started this search. It’s eating him up, Jack. And maybe he doesn’t show you guys as much, but he can’t hide it down there.” 

Jack sighs. This is exactly what he was afraid of. Mac tries to act like this search is just about catching a master criminal, but Jack knows Mac’s never really shaken the mentality that he has to prove he’s good enough to find his father. _I’m not even surprised at any of what she just said._

“I’m just saying, maybe we should let the clues stop right here. Tell Mac when he gets back that we couldn’t understand what the flowers meant. That it’s a dead end.” Jack resists the urge to make a really morbid joke about it being a clue from a tombstone. _I’m not gonna say that about the kid’s mom._  

“I wanna say you’re right. I don’t want that kid anywhere near that monster who’s no fit parent. But…” Jack shrugs. “If he can’t find James, and something happens, if a bomb goes off or someone gets killed, he’s going to believe it’s his fault for not being good enough to bring him in.” 

Jill nods slowly. Jack’s run through this logic himself on too many of the sleepless nights since Murdoc. _I wanna get him back, too, but the trail keeps going cold, and unlike James, he’s not leaving us much to go on._ Just mutilated bodies with macabre reproductions of Mac’s scars. 

“I got everything we’re gonna need.” Jack pulls out some of his old Delta gear. “Hope you’re my size, Elwood.” The dark clothes smell slightly of the cedar chest Jack had them in, but they should be serviceable. He hands the man a pair of tight black gloves and grabs a pair for himself. “Let’s do this.”

By the time they get to the building, it looks like Elwood is having second thoughts. “What if he’s waiting to pick off whoever comes to get this clue? You ever think of that?”

“He coulda done that a long time ago if he really wanted to.” Jack thinks back to the cabin in the Rockies, the box delivered to the house at Christmas. James isn’t interested in eliminating them. He wants to let his twisted little mind game play out.

“Okay, guys, security is down. It’s going to look like a normal systems update was installing. Jack, Elwood, you guys are a go.” 

“For the last time, Maid Marion, code names only.”

“Remind me again why you get to be Robin Hood, and I’m Little John?” Elwood grumbles, jamming his pick set into the front lock. 

“Be glad you’re not...oh, I don’t know, Friar Tuck.” Jack says. “Technically, that’s sort of taken, your daughter’s kickass facial rec program kinda claimed it.” Elwood looks up at him, eyebrows raised. “Long story, man.”

The door clicks open, and both of them step inside. “Okay. Just a couple more doors. Office and supply room, nothing else gets touched,” Jack says firmly.  “I am not letting you out of my sight, man.” 

Elwood sighs. “You called me, Jack.”

“I know. Just didn’t want the adrenaline rush to go to your head or nothin’.” Elwood rolls his eyes and gets to work on the next door. 

Three mops tumble out of the closet, one of them whacking Jack in the head, when Elwood finally gets the last door open. “You did that on purpose,” Jack grumbles, shoving them back inside.

“Yes, Jack, I broke in here hours ago simply to arrange the mops in the opitimal way that they would fall onto whoever was standing in front of the door.” _Guess Riley didn’t only learn her sarcastic streak from me…_ “So where is this clue we’re after?”

“I’m...not sure.” Jack pulls out his phone and turns on the flashlight. “He must have left some kind of…” He stops. There’s a mop sink in the floor in the back corner, and one of the tiles next to it has some kind of strange scratches on the top. To pretty much anyone else, it would look like the drag marks from the mop pails. But Jack’s had that flower design burned into his brain. “Right here.” He leans down and pries up the tile with his knife. Below it is a ground-out depression in the cement floor, and inside that is a small, flat metal object.

“What is that?” 

“Post office box key.” Jack sighs. “I am gettin’ real tired of this guy leaving literal keys around.” He tucks it into his pocket and stands up. His comms are buzzing, and he winces. “What’s goin’ on?”

“Guys, get out. Now. Matty needs me in the War Room stat.” Jill sounds worried. “I’m going to have to close down my hack so no one else comes across it and blows our little off the books operation.”

“Copy that, Marion.” Jack turns to Elwood. “Let’s get outta here. Oh, and make sure you leave those mops where they’ll return the favor of falling on the next person to open that damn door.” 

* * *

“Uh, Mac, I told Leanna not to worry, but what exactly _are_ you doing?” Bozer asks, following Mac as he shoves a laundry card down a hallway. The uniforms they found make them look like hotel employees, and Bozer’s glad that people at places like this never look twice at the ‘help’. _Otherwise they’d recognize that they’ve seen us before, and as guests._

“Remember how I used to sneak out of your room on the second floor?” Mac asks.

“The tree swing trick?”

“Well, I’m gonna use a hammock, but it’s on the same concept.” Bozer’s window had opened out to a tree that had had a swing tied into it. Mac would climb out onto one of the branches and then slide down the swing rope. _If Mama was having a bad night, she’d sit up in the living room with the TV, and he couldn’t go down the stairs to leave._  

“I get how that’s gonna get Leanna down, but Omar’s kinda unconscious.”

“We’re going to lower him down with a pulley system. Which is what this laundry cart is for.” Mac’s doing his ‘skip a few steps between his plan and his explanation’ thing again, but Bozer gets the general idea. 

When they push the cart under Omar’s window, Leanna is leaning over the edge of the balcony, watching them. Bozer glances up at her, grinning. “But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Leanna is the sun.”

“Bozer!” She sounds equal parts amused and exasperated. “Quit quoting Shakespeare and help me get this guy out of here!” 

Mac is busily detaching one of the hammocks, and handing it up to Leanna with one of the bracing poles. “Tie one end of this to your railing.” He grabs a few more things and starts climbing up the netting, Bozer following. “Riley’s going to meet us in the parking lot with a vehicle.”

Bozer helps Leanna bundle Omar into a sheet and then the extra hammock, while Mac rigs up his pulley system on the balcony. “Okay, guys, ready when you are,” Mac says. 

“Better hurry. Our social media queen mom boss just left her pilates class,” Riley says. “You’ve got about five minutes before she realizes you’re stealing her hubby, and I doubt she’s going to take that well.”

“Then we better do this fast.” Mac nods down to the laundry cart. “Bozer, go down and guide this in, and I’ll lower him down. Leanna, follow him down, and I’ll be right behind you.” 

“Okay, I’m in position.” Bozer reaches up to guide the hammock down. It seems to move painfully slowly, and the chain Mac is lowering it with is making an awful racket. Boer can just barely hear a pounding and yelling over the rattle. “Mac, I think they realized something’s wrong!”

“Uh...yeah.” The chain starts moving a little faster, and Omar falls into the heap of old towels. Bozer unclasps the  hammock.

“Got him, Mac! Get outta there!” With the sound of the chain suddenly gone, Bozer can clearly hear the yelling in the hall. And then a sharp sound of splintering wood. And there’s nothing that could mask the gunfire that begins to rattle.

Mac throws himself over the railing, catching himself on the hammock netting with one hand and scrambling down. “Go, go, go!” 

They run toward the parking lot, shoving the unwieldy cart along with them. Bozer looks up when he hears a horn honking. There’s a large flatbed truck with wooden slat sides driving up to them, the kind Bozer’s seen driving in and out of the vineyard every day. Riley leans out the window. “Someone call an Uber?”

Bozer shakes his head. “Really? There’s dozens of supercharged sports cars parked here, and you choose an old winery truck?” 

“Less conspicuous, Bozer.” 

“Also less likely to outrun the really pissed off Serbians chasing us!” Bozer doesn’t know how long it will be before those guys come out here. 

“Uh, I think I might be able to slow them down.” The two black Land Rovers that Bozer’s pretty sure belong to their mob pals are parked near the front gate. Mac undoes the gate chain and runs it through the wheels, then reattaches it to the gate and locks it in place. “That should take them a while to figure out.”

“Guys!” Leanna shouts, and Bozer turns around to see the four men barreling out of the front doors. He and Mac help Leanna hoist the deadweight that is Omar into the back of the truck, and Riley hits the gas as they pull away. 

Bozer leans back against the wooden racks on the side of the truck, next to Leanna. “Nice work in there.”

Leanna smiles at him. “Thanks. I...I can’t believe Mia’s actually a mob hit woman.” 

“Sometimes people are a whole lot different than they appear to be.” He reaches over and removes the prosthetic that’s beginning to fall off her nose. “They tend to surprise you.”

“Yeah.” Her voice sounds soft, worried, and he follows the line of her gaze to see that she’s staring at Mac. 

“We’re about a mile from the exfil team.” Riley’s voice in his ear makes Bozer jump. “But something about this isn’t adding up. I was still tracking Mia’s phone, and she never came back to the room. In fact, she’s not even on the grounds anymore.”

“Where is she going?”

“Into the forest.” Riley’s voice sounds very confused. “She shut her phone off as soon as she turned off the main road, right before Omar’s guys started chasing us, but the only thing in the direction she was going is an area of dense woods.” 

Matty’s voice cuts in. “Alright. Hand Omar off to our team, and then go after Mia. Whatever she’s doing out there, we need to know. If you can’t track her with her signal anymore, maybe we can get her on thermal. I’ll have Jill get us some sat views.”

“Sounds good.” Bozer blinks as headlights flash on out of nowhere, and three men in tac gear rush up to the truck. He pushes Leanna behind him instinctively before he realizes this is the exfil team. 

“Hey Davis, who are the new kids?” The man leading the team asks, leaning on the driver’s door. 

“MacGyver, Bozer, and Leanna Martin,” Riley says. “Guys, this is Claude Giroux, French exfil team leader.” Claude grins and shakes each of their hands as he hops up in the back of the truck to help another of his men carry Omar out. “I guess you like them, since you didn’t toss them out of the back a few miles ago.” 

“Yeah, they’re keepers,” Riley chuckles. “Good luck.”

“ _Bon Chance_ to you too, Davis. Hear the chatter that you’re staying in-country to get a mob boss’s daughter.”

“If all goes well, we’ll be seeing you again in a couple hours.” Riley puts the truck in gear. Bozer sits back down against the side and listens to Jill’s voice in the comms directing them which way to go following the heat signature of a car engine winding its way through the forest trails. Leanna twists her fingers into his, and for a moment, it’s peaceful enough for Bozer to lean back, look up at the stars, and feel Leanna’s head on his shoulder. 

* * *

Leanna bolts upright when the truck stops. She’s been half-dozing, her head on Bozer’s shoulder, and it felt _right._ He’d insisted on taking the couch last night, in case they somehow got caught together, but here there’s no one watching but the people who already know that they’re a couple. 

“We should go in on foot from here. The car’s stopped at a structure with several heat signatures inside, and our engine would make too much noise coming.” Riley climbs out. “It’s about a mile, dead ahead. Mac and I are going to take the right side, Bozer, Leanna, go left and we’ll circle the place. We don’t know who Mia is meeting with, so stay sharp.” Leanna nods, and follows Bozer into the underbrush.

“Hey, what does this remind you of?” Bozer whispers as they walk along, rolling their feet from outside edge inward to avoid making as much noise.

“Spy school?” Leanna whispers back. “With a lot less angry guys with dogs shooting at us.”

“Well, that could change if our Serbian buddies figure out how to undo Mac’s work.”

“Thanks for that reassurance, Bozer.” She pauses. “Shh. I see lights up ahead.” Bozer nods, and they start picking their way forward even more slowly.

“Guys, there’s a lot of open space between us and that cabin,” Riley says. “You two have more cover. See if you can get close enough to ID anyone inside. Mia could be here meeting with her father, an update on her progress or something.”

Leanna creeps a little closer, trying to keep her body mostly behind a tree near the cabin. She can hear voices inside, but they’re either speaking another language or they’re heavily accented, and she’s not able to pick out enough to tell which. She takes a few steps closer and a branch snaps loudly under her foot.

Instantly, a back door bangs open. Three men with semiautos rush out, and in the light from the doorway they can see her perfectly. The first one who tries to grab her Leanna takes down with a perfect punch to the solar plexus, but the other two are on her before she can make another move.

“Hey! Leave her alone!” _Oh Bozer._ He’s trying to play hero when he should have stayed quiet and waited for backup. The men turn on him immediately, and she hears guns clicking. 

“You two. Inside. Now.” She doesn’t argue, just raises her hands and walks through the door. 

Inside, Mia is standing watching them, still dressed in her pilates clothes with a sweatshirt over her sports bra. The man beside her is all too familiar, but not from Mia’s past. _Boris Mitrovic._ And suddenly the whole thing falls into place in Leanna’s head.

 _The honeymoon was to bring them close enough to Omar’s father that he would risk setting a meeting. And he loved Mia so he told her all the details. She was going to get here early, kill Boris, and set Omar up to take over the family._  

“You two.” Mia spits. “I knew I could never trust you.”

“You know them?”

“They were trying to get your son to tell them where you are,” Mia spits. “And they weren’t alone. There are two more. A blond man and a girl like her. They must be here somewhere.”

“Ah, nah, they’re long gone,” Bozer says flippantly. “They had something else to take care of.”

“But you see, I don’t believe that.” Boris steps up to him. “But I also do not want to send my men outside to look for them. Maybe that is what you want, eh? For my men to go out in the dark and be picked off one by one by your friends?” He shakes his head. “Oh, no. I think I will keep you as insurance.” He leans toward Leanna. “You are very beautiful. For now.”

Bozer actually snarls. “Lay a finger on her and I'll…” He stops when Boris pulls out a gun and holds it to Bozer’s temple. 

“Now is not the time to make a threat, my friend. Not before we get acquainted. I think you two already know who I am, but I don't know who you are. So, please, introduce yourself. Name and agency will be sufficient.” He takes a step back, folding his arms. Leanna and Bozer both shake their heads. Leanna’s mouth is dry. _This is what that interrogation training was for._  

“One way or another, we will find out. Perhaps a little more pain will loosen your tongue. Eh?” Boris picks up a knife off the table.

Just then, there’s a pounding knock at the door. Leanna jumps. “Get it.” Boris nods to his guards, and two of them pull the door open. The person standing in the opening is Mac.

“Hi guys.” He doesn’t get anything more out before one of the guards twists his arms behind him and throws Mac onto the floor. 

Mac looks terrified. The men are patting him down roughly, hands tugging at his clothes and slapping against his body, and he looks like all he wants to do is escape this as soon as possible. 

 _Oh my God._ Leanna’s mind is finally slotting all the pieces together. _A guy like him in a supermax. Two years. Desperately doing whatever it took to get solitary. Flinching away from touch, from any display of physical affection._ She wants to be sick. _I didn’t realize…_ She knew the facts, the statistics. Tested on them in college. But she never thought she’d meet one. _Never thought one would be my friend. Trying to save my life._  

The guards drag Mac to his feet and pin him against a wall. Boris moves closer to him, the knife in his hand glittering in the light of the fire roaring up the chimney. 

“Who are you people?” Boris asks. 

“That doesn’t matter.” Mia’s tone is icy. 

“What are you…” There’s a sudden click of guns, and Leanna realizes that all but one of the goons have stopped guarding her and Bozer. “What is this?” Boris asks. His men are now training their guns on him. 

“You see, there’s a little thing about hired guns. They like to work for whoever pays them the most.” Mia smiles, and it’s a cold, empty look. “These people are...well, it doesn’t matter. Foreign agents, rival mob hit men, it doesn’t matter. They tracked you, decided to eliminate you. Unfortunately, your men were too late to save you. They did, however, kill the people who shot you.”

“Why are you doing this?” Boris asks. “You are family.”

“Yes. But not yours.” Mia smiles. “Kill them all.” 

They have seconds to do something before they all die. Leanna sees Mac’s hand moving slowly toward a pocket, and he’s glancing at the fireplace. She just has to stall until he can do whatever it is he needs to. _He seems so calm now._ It’s like being held at gunpoint and threatened with imminent death is less terrifying than a pat-down. She swallows. There will be time to think about that later, but only if they live. She clears her throat. “We have Omar. And with him, your plan to unite your families. If you don’t have him, killing his father isn’t going to do you any good.” 

Mia stops. 

“Is this true?” Mia turns on Mac with a snarl. “What have you done with him?”

“By now, your husband is on a plane in the air to the United States,” Mac says. “What happens to him next is up to you.”

“How do I know you’re not bluffing?” 

“Call your bodyguards back at the hotel. He’s long gone.” Bozer shrugs. “They’re probably still spinning their wheels back there. Literally.”

Mia yanks out her phone and switches it on, starting to dial a number. It’s just enough of a distraction. Mac pulls free of the men holding him and tosses something small into the fireplace. It shatters. 

“What was that?” Mia shouts. She whips out a small handgun from the pocket of her sweatshirt and aims it at Mac, but she’s blinking and swaying. The room is full of some kind of sweetish gas, it’s getting hard to breathe and Leanna can feel herself fading. _The chloroform. Mac kept the rest of it and he just threw it in the fire._  

She hears a gunshot, but she’s too dizzy to know what’s happening. And then she’s falling into blackness. 

* * *

When Bozer wakes up, he feels a little hungover. Again. _This is why I don’t drink._ Well, that and what happened to Mama. _Why did I think this op was going to be fun?_

His right hand feels warm. Unusually warm. _Damn it, Mac, did you really pull such a childish prank?_ If he finds his fingers in a bowl of water...he glances over at his hand and suddenly the vague fogginess is replaced by a sharp, disconcerting clarity. His fingers are intertwined with someone else’s. Leanna. _Oh no._  

He glances to the other side of him, and sees Mac, lying pale and quiet on another gurney. _No, no, no._ He heard a gunshot right before he passed out. _Please, no, he was just getting better after Murdoc._  

“Mac?” He asks softly, hesitantly.

“He’s okay.” Riley speaks up. She’s sitting next to Mac, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. “He knocked everyone in the house out with chloroform. For eight hours. And because he was one of the closest ones to the fireplace…”

“Largest dose.” The voice is shaky and weak, but it’s definitely Mac’s. “Figured they wouldn’t wake up before the tac team got there, so…” _So it didn’t matter if you were out longer than almost everyone else, you self-sacrificing idiot._

Bozer lifts his hand, still entangled with Leanna’s. “So how busted are we?” She’s coming around too, now, eyelashes fluttering. 

“You two were holding hands when we found you. Paramedics tried pulling you apart, but Bozer's fingers wouldn't budge.”

“Cute,” Mac says with a weak chuckle.

“Yeah, well, don’t get any ideas,” Bozer says, grinning. “I’m not holding your hand too.” He shakes his head. “Wait, did the paramedics tell Matty about my fingers?” 

Riley shakes her head. “I don't think so. But she did get Leanna a car. Straight to the airport, then right back to the CIA. Matty also said to call her ASAP.” Bozer hears wheels crunching on gravel. _This is going to hurt._ Busted or not, he has to say goodbye.

Riley stands up. “Leanna, it was a pleasure meeting you. Bozer, good luck with that phone call.” 

“So do you think she knows?” Leanna asks as Bozer helps her up and to the car.

“Uh...well, Matty kind of seems to know everything, so...yeah, probably.”

Leanna stares at the ground. “I’m sorry, Bozer. It was my fault we got caught. If Boris...or well I guess Mia’s...guys hadn’t heard me, we wouldn’t have been in that cabin together and we wouldn’t...still be holding hands.”

“Oh, right.” Bozer lets go and wipes his sweaty palm on his pants. “Leanna, I was as much to blame as you. I broke one of the biggest spy rules. Don’t let your emotion get in the way of your judgment. I was gonna take on those guys with my bare hands if they hurt you.”

Leanna smiles. “Thank you. And for what it’s worth, if we get caught, I am sorry I cost you a career as a spy.” 

“Well, if we do get fired, I’ve kind of always wanted to try my hand at a career as a stand-up comedian. Or I could get back into the movie business.” He shrugs. “Maybe both? Both is good, right?”

Leanna chuckles. “Bozer, you have a way of always reminding me just why I love you.” 

“Because I’m a massive dork?”

“Because you can always make me smile.” She climbs into the car, and bozer watches sadly while she’s driven away. He pulls out his phone, it actually survived Mac this time, and dials Phoenix. 

Matty’s voice is sharp when she picks up. “When I say ASAP, I mean ASAP, Bozer.”

“Yes, ma'am. Sorry about that.” He’s pacing, he can’t help it. He can see Mac sitting up on the edge of his gurney, watching. _Please, Matty, whatever you want to do to me, don’t involve him._  

“So, you and Leanna, huh?” 

“What are you, uh what are you talking about?” Bozer’s always done this. _Even when I know I’m caught, I still try to pretend I’m innocent._  

“I've known about you two since before Riley found your secret Snapchats.” Is it just his imagination, or does it sound like Matty’s smiling? And is that a good thing or a bad thing?

“You have?”

“Of course. Why do you think I brought Agent Martin in on this op?” She pauses, but he can’t answer. “What, did you think I was playing some sort of twisted head game with you?” 

“Uh, that thought had crossed my mind.”

“Oh, please, Bozer. If you ask me, this whole spy school "good-bye forever" policy is just dumb. We always work better with people that we care about.” There’s a pain in her voice that’s very real. _What happened with her? Someone she had to let go of?_ “So, how was it being fake married to your girlfriend, Bozer?”

“I think I could do this the rest of my life.” He smiles. _Yeah, it was good._  

* * *

When Jack shows up at the Phoenix for his scheduled appointment with the counselor, Matty’s waiting at the door. “Jack. War Room. We need to talk.”

“You know, you’re the one who told me I had to go see the shrink, and now you’re gonna make me late for it.” Jack’s joke falls flat as Matty slams the War Room door behind them.

Matty doesn’t even raise an eyebrow at what he just said. “Dalton, I need to know why one of my best operatives, my head of R&D, and a reformed criminal were breaking into an LA office building last night.”

“You know about that?”

“Jack, you neglected one very important part of the plan. Switching your comm traffic with Jill to an outside bandwidth. You were still on the Phoenix network.” Jack facepalms. _Knew there was something I was forgetting._  

“Matty, I’m sorry. But the kid’s spinning his wheels on that thing with his dad and I just wanted to help.”

“Did you find anything?” Her voice has changed. No longer scolding. Concerned. Maternal. _She’s as worried about Mac as the rest of us. She’s seen him getting thinner, the worry in his eyes, the way he’s started flinching again when people startle him._ Sure, some of that...a lot of that...is Murdoc’s fault, but this James thing isn’t helping. 

“Yeah. Sorta.” Jack holds out the post office box key. It’s been burning a hole in his pocket and he can’t wait for Mac to get back in-country so he can give it to him. 

“I just hope it was worth it.” And in her voice, Jack hears the same fear he has. _Maybe Mac is better off never finding that creep._

But maybe that’s something he should discuss with the therapist. “Hey Matty, I think the doc might wanna murder me if I’m more than half an hour late to our session.”

“Go.” Matty smiles sadly. Jack leaves, hurrying down to the counselor’s office. Sure enough, Anna Carlisle is less than pleased with his punctuality. But saying he had a meeting with the director is not a lie at all. And the only valid excuse to be late to this thing.

“So, Jack, what is it you want to talk about?” He knows she already knows, she has Matty’s notes, but he’s never been one to lie to people like her. It doesn’t ever get him anywhere good.

“Well, it’s flashbacks. You saw my file, it’s what happened in the New Orleans op.” The woman nods. “Every time I’m in a small space, I feel trapped. I smell smoke, and…” He shudders slightly. 

“I don’t think I have to tell you that you’re experiencing PTSD.” Carlisle glances at him. “But I’m getting the feeling that’s not all that’s bothering you.”

Jack nods, sighing and rubbing his hands, sweaty palms down, along his thighs to rest on his knees. “It’s Mac. My partner. He got shot on the last op we were on together, by a guy who shouldn’t even be able to look at him, let alone lay a finger on him.” He realizes his voice is rising, the anger bleeding through in a way none of the fear did when he talked about the coffin and the memories. “I have nightmares. Of not being able to get to the kid soon enough. Of him bleeding out in my arms. Or just...not being there.” _All too often, I run into that room to see nothing on the floor but Mac’s blood. A puddle and a single letter, written with a finger. M._

“How often would you say these nightmares happen? Once a night? More frequently? Less?” Carlisle is twisting her pencil through her fingers. 

“You know, I didn’t have one last night.” It’s the first time he’s realized that. He went home after getting that key, and he crashed on the couch, and he slept a dreamless sleep. “For the first time, I didn’t dream.”

“That’s good,” Carlisle says, and even as she starts in on another question, Jack can feel some of the tension slipping away. _It just takes some time. And some people to talk to. Maybe we’re going to be alright._

* * *

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

THIS WEDDING IS THE REAL DEAL

“You may now kiss the bride.” Sam grins as Tyler pulls Linsey in close, and Linsey twists a hand in the back of his suit jacket like they never want to let go of each other. She didn’t think she’d ever have the chance to see her sister again, much less watch her get married. And she never would have believed she’d get to be the maid of honor. _I thought that piece of my life was gone forever. But a lot of people helped give that back to me._

She glances out at the crowd. Roger Marton is there, smiling. Thornton, Matty, Jack, Mac, Riley, and Bozer, and even Leanna are there as well. _It’s thanks to them that I can stand here today with my sister._

She’s loved spending the past two weeks here in Sydney, helping her sister arrange the final details of her wedding planning. As it turns out, the two of them together could probably start their own wedding planner business. Between Linsey’s natural eye for aesthetics and Sam’s ability to find the right people for the right job, they’d managed to pull all the plans together and still have enough time to take a day trip to one of their favorite places as children. Sam’s shoulders are still slightly sunburned from the hike, but the view was worth it. As was spending that time with the sister she walked away from all those years ago.

She startles when she feels Ty pull her in. “You’re family, too, you know.” He grins. “Don’t have to stand there looking like you don’t belong.” 

The reception is fun. The mixture of chaotic cheerful and reserved minimalism is perfectly Linsey, and she and Ty are an almost sickeningly cute couple, from their first dance to the first slice of cake. Leanna catches the bouquet when it’s thrown, and when she turns to kiss Bozer, Sam catches a flicker of sadness on Riley’s face. _It’s got to hurt watching them together._ She knows that leaving the team herself was a blow for her former roommate. _Having another woman around to talk to and confide in really helped her. Jack is great for a lot of things, but there are some things that are just better discussed with other girls._ And now Bozer is clearly deeply involved with his new girlfriend. _She can say it’s just abandonment issues all she wants, but I can see that he grew on her. She was just getting ready to trust, to try a relationship again._  

But just as quickly, that little pained look is gone, and Riley is dragging Jack out on the dance floor, clearly something Jack is not overly fond of. But it looks like they’re having fun. Father and daughter. 

She glances at Mac. _He’s the only one here without family._ Even Jack, who’s the closest thing Mac has to a father, is elsewhere right now. Mac’s just leaning on the drink table, an untouched glass in his hand and a faraway look in his eyes. One hand is in the pocket of his suit jacket.

“You brought that key all the way here?” Cage asks. “Weren’t you afraid it might get lost?”

“How did you…” Mac trails off. _I’m the expert at reading people’s secrets. Remember?_ “But...I just don’t know what to do. I was hoping maybe getting out of LA, thinking about it somewhere else, that might help.”

“What is it about this key that’s giving you this much trouble?” She wonders if it’s a dead end, a lead to a place no longer in business.

“It’s not the key. It’s what’s attached to it.” Mac holds out the piece of metal, and Sam fingers the red thread tied through the end of it. “When my dad used to make me find things at home, he’d tie different colors of thread to the various clues. Make me solve them in order. White, purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red.” He sighs. “It was like a color coded way of saying warmer, warmer, hot. And red was always the color on the last clue.”

So whatever’s in that post office box…”

“Is the last piece of the puzzle. He might even be waiting there to meet me when I show up.” Mac swallows and looks directly into her eyes. “And I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”


	18. Bear Trap+Mob Boss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I'm back! My novel has a first draft done and out to beta readers, and I'm thrilled to be writing Wunderkind again, I've missed it so much!!!

###  217-Bear Trap+Mob Boss

POST OFFICE

JACK BROUGHT THREE GUNS

“You’re sure you wanna do this?” Jack asks. He doesn’t like it. He wishes Mac would have agreed to them surrounding the whole building with a Phoenix tac team. But Mac argued that that was a bad move. 

_ “We don’t want to piss him off. He hasn’t actively tried to kill us yet, and I’d rather not change that.” _

Jack doesn’t disagree with the sentiment, but in his opinion the only way to really get a leash on a guy like James MacGyver is locking him up in a ten-by-ten.  _ I’d rather not bank on his good will toward the kid he abandoned and the people he used to work with. _

“I’m not sure.” Mac shakes his head. “What do I do if it’s instructions for how to meet him? Or even talk to him? I haven’t heard his voice in fifteen years.” Jack doesn’t comment on the fact that it’s almost fifteen years to the day, now.  _ No wonder the kid’s frazzled. _

“Well, if it is, I’d like to be at that meeting myself.” Jack knows Mac’s probably going to protest when that happens, but Jack is  _ not _ leaving the kid alone with a criminal like James.  _ Not to mention the fact that he’s been a shitty parent. _ James should never be allowed to be in the same room as Mac again. But Jack already knows that’s not how it’s going to go down.  _ At least maybe I can be there with him. Remind him that James’s opinion of him doesn’t matter anymore. And it never really did.  _

Mac pulls the key out of his pocket. It was tarnished when Jack found it, but now the metal is shiny.  _ He’s been rubbing at it, fretting over this. _ Jack hates to see the kid worrying like that. He hopes this is the end of the line, for Mac’s sake.  _ James is leading him on, and it’s cruel. _

There are several people in the post office, but according to Riley and her access to the video cameras, none of them can be James unless he’s wearing the world’s best prosthetics and has also developed the ability to grow and shrink on demand. There’s one little elderly lady pulling some things out of her post office box, and after she leaves Mac and Jack are the only ones in front of the wall of little silver doors. 

Mac sighs, sticks the key in the lock that matches its number (Riley hit a dead end when the box traced to a shell company), and pulls it open.

The only thing inside is a legal size white envelope. Mac pulls out the tweezers from his knife and carefully lifts the letter out. Jack notices a couple of the other people inside starting to stare. “C’mon, kid, let’s hit the road.” Mac, apparently satisfied that the letter won’t poison him or explode, nods and follows him out the door.

Once they’re both in the car, Jack pulls out of his parking space and turns to Mac. “Gonna open that thing, or just stare at it?”

“I can’t open it until we’re back at Phoenix. Anything about it could be a clue.”

“Thought that little red thread meant we were done with the clues, dude.”

“He likes making things harder than they should be.” Jack doesn’t know what to say to that. 

When they get to Phoenix, Mac requests to have a lab space to himself. Jill signs off on it; and Jack’s pretty sure she knows exactly what’s going on. She gives him a sad-eyed glance as he follows Mac into the lab.  _ I had to tell him. Couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t.  _

Multiple fancy scans and tests only confirm what Jack already knew from the minute he laid eyes on the envelope. There’s nothing there that will help them. No fingerprints, no hair, not so much as a smudge. Finally, Mac pulls out his knife again and slits the top of the letter open, pulling out a piece of college-ruled paper with the crisp, all-caps handwriting Jack’s come to despise. 

Mac reads over the words, then swallows hard, his throat working like he’s trying not to cry or be sick. Jack doesn’t like that at all. 

“What does that letter say?”

“Now you have everything you need to find me. But unless you come alone, you’ve broken the rules.” Mac looks up, eyes haunted, and then spreads the rest of the contents of the envelope on the lab table. It’s a collection of small prints of photos. Riley, locking the door of her apartment. Sam in a grocery store, buying oranges. Patty, getting out of her car at the Phoenix. Matty, through the window of her house. Bozer, walking Mickey. And Jack. Breaking into the building that he found the key in only a few days ago. There’s a timestamp on the photo, and wherever James was, he was close enough to clearly capture Jack’s face. 

“Man, I’m gettin’ real tired of people threatening you with pictures,” Jack grumbles.  _ Screw you, James. Now you’re taking the game too far.  _

* * *

WAR ROOM

BEST PLACE TO MAKE LONG DISTANCE CALLS

“No, no, no. If he does it that way he’ll electrocute himself. The water needs to stay away from the motor.” Mac shakes his head, and watches Nasha turn around and shout to the young man fiddling with the water pump in the background of the screen. He stops and walks over, wiping greasy hands on a rag. 

“What is it that is wrong, MacGyver?”

“The pump motor is underneath where the water will be coming up to go into the sluice. Water is going to keep falling on it and eventually short out the motor. Which is probably what happened to the last pump.” Nasha called yesterday saying the village’s ancient water pump had finally given up the ghost, and Mac spent most of last night drawing up plans for one that’s more efficient and runs off the engine of one of the broken-down vehicles the villages dragged back from the Damisa fight months ago. They’ve scrapped the ruined jeeps and trucks for parts, and there were a few viable engines left. 

“Okay, we will move it.” Mac knows it’s hard to read his plans when the only way for them to be seen is holding them up to the screen.  _ Sat calls does not mean email goes through. _ He wants to find a workaround for better communication, but that’s going to be something he needs to sit down with Riley with at some point. He knows where his skill set is, and it’s not technology like that. 

He watches as several of the teenagers reposition the pump.  _ Nasha’s smart, she turned this into hands-on learning for her kids.  _ They’re fortunate to have her. He flinches internally at the thought of the last schoolteacher he talked through a build via sat call.  _ I think Nasha and Zoe would have gotten along real well. _ Both of them were so willing to sacrifice everything for the kids they took under their care. Zoe already did. And Mac hopes desperately that Nasha won’t have to.  _ But the truth is, between the wars and the traffickers, she’s in danger every single day. _ Not that his life is any better.

He jumps when Nasha comes back to the screen, apparently they’ve successfully moved the pump motor. “You should come back, MacGyver. The children all want to see you again. They call you the ‘one who makes magic’.” 

Mac laughs.  _ Those kids were so precious. _ “I’d like that. I’ve been busy, lately, but I’d love to see them all again. They haven’t given you too much trouble after I showed them some of that stuff, right?” 

“Aside from the three small fires and the failed electrified mosquito net?”

“ _ What? _ ”

“It was a joke,” Nasha says. “We only had one fire.” Her laugh is infectious. “But they’ve learned so much. Thanks to what you did, they  _ want _ to learn.” Her dark eyes are sparkling with a passionate joy. “It was not just words on pages of books anymore. It was real and exciting.”

“That’s the key,” Mac says, thinking of Mr. Ericson. He really needs to drive up to Mission City soon and see how retirement is treating his old friend. “One of these days, I’ll have to call in from the lab, do a little demonstration for them. And I promise, I’ll fly out, as soon as I can.”  _ As soon as this business with James is cleared up. _ Mac can’t be around anyone he wants to keep safe, not as long as that man is watching.

“Mac, I hate to interrupt the real-time home repair channel, but we have an issue.” Matty steps in. “I’m kind of going to need this room back.” Her smile is gentle though. “It’s nice to see you again, Nasha. How’s Mac doing explaining that thought process of his?”

“Actually, we are about to find out.” Nasha nods to the young man standing next to the motor, and when he flips the switch that turns the engine over, belts and pulleys start to rattle and a conveyor belt starts moving, and Mac watches with a smile as water begins to run down the sluiceway. 

“It works perfectly. Thank you, MacGyver,” Nasha says. “Now I think I should let your boss take you back to your real job.”

“Helping people is always my real job,” Mac chuckles, giving Nasha a smile before he hangs up. “What’s going on, Matty?”

“Unfortunately, nothing good.” Matty steps up to the War Room screen while Mac backs up to join Jack and Riley, who have just walked in. Bozer is just hanging up with Leanna, and when Matty glares at him, he slips his phone is his pocket. “Bozer. Do not make me regret allowing you to use official encrypted channels for your conversations.” 

“Yes ma’am.” Bozer looks up. “Who’s the scary dude up there?”

Matty glances at the screen. “Guys, meet Dmitry Pavlovich, head of the Ukrainian mob. Since 2004, the U.S. has suspected Dmitry of supplementing his income by allowing international terrorist groups to move weapons and contraband through his trade routes.”

“Well, he sure wasn’t gonna win his millions on Ukraine’s Next Top Model,” Jack says, shaking his head. Matty glares at him.

“The U.S. has never been able to directly link Dmitry to these terrorist groups until a month ago, when the CIA flipped someone inside of Dmitry's organization. This mystery of genetics, Sergei, the lackey that worked for Dmitry and the mob.” Jack snorts. “Plans were arranged for Sergei to meet with a CIA handler to turn over all the necessary info to dismantle Dmitry's entire organization.”

“Let me guess, that didn’t really go as planned,” Riley says. “The word got out, and Dmitry put out a hit on Sergei. Am I right?”

Matty nods. “And the moment the Ukrainian mob started hunting Sergei, he fell off the grid, refusing any further contact with the CIA.”

“Smart dude. Ukrainians are nobody to mess with,” Jack says. “Guess he’s smarter than he looks, anyway.” He shrugs. “So what are we supposed to do? Find him?”

“Actually, we already have. Phoenix intercepted messages between Sergei and a forger, who agreed to make him fake travel documents. We have the time and location of the meeting.” 

“So, this is a simple extraction? Done and done,” Jack says.

“There's nothing simple about this, Jack, or the CIA would have handled it themselves. The Ukrainian mob is very invested in hunting Sergei, and he knows it. So he’s hiding somewhere very off the grid.”

“As in off the grid since 1986,” Riley says. The next series of photos are aerial views of Chernobyl. Mac cringes. It’s a wasteland. Like something out of one of Bozer’s horror movies.  _ We’re going there? _

“Jack, stop humming ‘Radioactive’. Please.” Riley groans. 

“Well, it’s what we’re all gonna be. Dude, I take back everything I said about this guy being smart. He’s the craziest nutbag we’ve ever come across. Murdoc excluded.” 

“Actually, this is a pretty smart move,” Mac says. “Wide open spaces, he could hear someone coming long before they actually got to him, there’s plenty of cover and no chance of being outed by bystanders…”

“It’s like one of those video games where you’re by yourself against hundreds of zombies or whatever,” Bozer says. “Sorry, not helping.”

“Yeah, Zombies. Or whatever else grows in them freaky mutated woods,” Jack grumbles. “Matty, are you sure about this? Or is it, you know, kinda safe now? It's been 30 years, right? That's long enough. Right? We're all good?”

Mac shrugs, still looking at the destroyed, abandoned landscape.  _ Everything changed so fast. _ “By now, most of the strontium-90's probably all good, but plutonium's half-life, depending on the isotope, is anywhere between 80 and 24,000 years.”

“So that little brain vomit just told me the whole place is still leaking radiation?”

_ Well, I guess I didn’t help anything. As usual.  _ “Um, yeah.” 

“Wonderful. Okay, team, let’s go get turned into mutants.” 

Matty sighs. “Jack, enough. You, Mac, and Riley are wheels up in ten. Bozer, you’re here with me.”

“I am?” Bozer looks up, and he seems equal parts relieved and confused. 

“Yes. Somehow, the Ukrainian mob got wind that the CIA flipped Sergei, and I’m sure he didn’t tell them himself. I need you to talk to Leanna and help me hunt a mole.” 

* * *

CHERNOBYL

JACK IS ALLERGIC TO SOMETHING. PROBABLY RADIATION.

“Ahhh...choo!” Jack sniffs and wipes his nose on the sleeve of the homemade ghillie suit Mac put together. 

“You spooked him,” Mac mumbles wryly. He sounds as out of breath as Jack feels.  _ Running in this thing sucks. Bigtime. _

“Well, I didn’t mean to!” Jack sniffles again. “Mac, I think we need to turn around.”

“Why? He didn’t double back on us, we can literally see him.” Mac’s a few yards ahead, the kid has freaky long legs and besides, he’s not stopping to sneeze half his brains out every three seconds. 

“No, but dude, I think I’m allergic to radiation. I’m like a human geiger counter. If I’m sneezing more than...oh, three times an hour, we’re too close.”

“Come on. We’re outside even the exclusion zone. I think it’s far more likely that you’re allergic to some of these plants.” Mac shakes his head. He looks like a walking tree.  _ Ents. Great, now I got Lord of the Rings in my head. And we’re headed straight for Mordor. Poisonous land and all. _

“Yeah, cause they’re freaking mutated death plants,” Jack mutters. “Come on, kid, you never seen  _ Little Shop of Horrors _ ?”

“ _ Please _ tell me you’re not going to make us watch it when we get home,” Riley grumbles. “Otherwise I might lose my incentive to catch up to this guy.” Jack can hear the revving engine of her motorcycle, she’s coming in at an angle from the road, hoping to cut Sergei off. 

“Just get him so we can get outta this radiation-soaked place.” Jack groans, then sneezes again, so violently he almost trips over his own feet. 

“At this point, you should just take that whole thing off,” Mac says, and Jack can hear him struggling to do the same while running.  _ That’s a recipe for disaster, especially for you.  _ The kid’s long legs might be great for running, but he also seems to get tangled up in them fairly often. 

“Guys, I just lost Sergei.” Riley’s voice comes in over comms. “He went off the road. Think you guys can catch him while I try to find another route?” 

“Sure thing.” Jack’s gotten his ghillie suit off, and he runs after Mac, although he doesn’t drop the suit.  _ Maybe Mac can make some kinda Ewok style net trap outta ‘em. _ Mac is a few steps ahead, and Jack can hear a crashing further away that’s probably Sergei.  _ Come on, dude, we’re the good guys! We’re trying to help! _

Then there’s a sound that’s a lot less like snapping twigs and rustling leaves, and a lot more like clanking metal. And a muffled Ukrainian curse or two.  _ What is he doing? _ Jack bursts out of the treeline just in time to see Sergei dropping to the ground on the other side of a chain link fence and running off across a meadow.

Mac is staring at the fence. Or, more accurately, the rusty yellow and black sign on it. 

Jack frowns. “My Ukrainian’s a bit rusty but that definitely says something about contaminated zone, do not enter, and Chernobyl.”

“Even I can read that.” Mac stares up at the fence again, at the snagged cloth and blood on the barbed wire. “We’re going after him, aren’t we?”

“Radiation might kill us. But if we come back empty-handed, Matty will  _ definitely _ kill us.” Jack shrugs. “I guess we take our chances.”

Mac nods, tosses his ghillie suit onto the fence over the barbed wire, and starts to climb. Jack follows.  _ Man, I really hope there aren’t any mutants in there... _

* * *

CIA FIELD OFFICE

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

“I can’t believe we get to see each other again already.” Leanna says. She was waiting in the airport to meet him when his plane landed, since the team took the jet to Chernobyl.  _ I wish I could have been cool and showed up in the fancy jet, but it doesn’t matter to her anyway. _ Bozer’s still wrapping his head around the fact that Leanna could have had any sexy, badass agent she wanted, and she chose him. The barely qualified lab geek. 

“Yeah, except this time you get to show me around  _ your  _ ultra cool office.” Bozer tosses his duffel bag in the back seat of the compact car Leanna drives, and she pulls out into the Seattle traffic. 

Leanna shakes her head, laughing. “Not  _ mine _ , Bozer. I barely have a cubicle.” She shrugs. “Your lab is a whole lot cooler than my tiny little chunk of grey walls, squeaky chairs, and pencil cups.” 

“Someday you’re gonna be in one of those big corner offices with the windows. I just know it.”

“You really think so?” She smiles.  _ I missed those smiles so much. _ Phone calls are one thing, but seeing her in person is so much better. 

The CIA building is less impressive than Bozer expected. It’s not as modern as Phoenix, the outside has distinct seventies influence and inside isn’t much different. It’s basically a generic office building. But that’s probably good cover for anyone who happens to see more of it than they should. 

Bozer gets his visiting pass from a bored-looking desk clerk and waits while she gives him a fingerprint check, retinal scan, and a full-body metal detector sweep. 

He’s still surprised these people agreed that him coming here was a good idea. But apparently Matty is very good at pulling strings.  _ So much for spy school rules. _ He’s just glad he didn’t get fired or court martialed or worse.

Leanna is waiting in the lobby when he comes back out of the back room where he was checked over. She pulls him aside to a quiet spot by a potted plant that looks suspiciously dusty, too much so to be a real one. 

“I know Matty didn’t just send us here to play cute. What’s going on?”

Bozer shakes his head. “Not in here. We don’t know who to trust. Come on, let’s go get coffee somewhere.”

“Are you using work as an excuse for a date?”

“Are you going to argue with that?” He grins, and she shakes her head.

“Let me grab my jacket.”

* * *

CHERNOBYL

THE FAMOUS PART

“Man, I got two arms, two legs, and no horn growing out of the center of my forehead. I'd like to keep it that way.” Jack mumbles. 

Mac would settle for not tripping over the outrageously overgrown plant life out here.  _ Radiation doesn’t mutate plants into killer venus flytraps. _ But he has to admit Jack got that image in his head, and now he’s starting to be just a little creeped out.  _ No worse than Bozer telling creepy stories at sleepovers or filming his monster movies in our house.  _ Still, he flinches a little more than usual whenever something starts to cling to his legs.

“Relax. We're on the edge of the exclusion zone.” He doesn’t think his laugh sounds very convincing to anyone, even himself. “Way far away from the reactor. The radiation's not that bad out here.”

Jack stops, leaning against a tree. “Which is exactly why I think going further in is not our brightest moment.” Mac never ceases to be amazed at how a man who can put his back to the wall in a full on shootout and take out ten bad guys with three bullets gets worried about crazy sci-fi scenarios like aliens and mutants.  _ Then again, firefights are something he can control. There’s nothing you can do about radiation exposure. All the skill in the world can’t save you then.  _

“You said it yourself, Matty’s gonna be pissed if we come back without Sergei.” Mac shrugs. 

“Better her than some flying purple people-eater,” Jack mumbles. 

“Stop. Hang on a second. No one is getting eaten by anything out here. Except maybe these flies.” Mac absolutely detests the little whining creatures assaulting his nose, ears, and eyes. They weren’t so bad when he and Jack were running, but now that they’ve stopped, they’re unbearable. 

“Just don’t do anything stupid, hun? Cause being attacked by irradiated mutants that you've pissed off is not on my to-do list, sorry.” Jack shakes his head. 

“There's no such thing as irradiated mutants. Most people who get exposed to too much radiation, they just...uh...lose all their hair and die.”

“Well, that doesn't make me feel any better. And you said most, dude. Which means mutants are totally a theoretical possibilit-.” 

There’s a loud snapping sound and an animalistic scream of pain. Mac flinches. 

“What the hell is that?” Jack beats him to the question.

“I-I don’t know.” Mac suddenly feels very much less confident that they’re not in any real danger.  _ No, I still don’t think there are mutants. But it might be the Ukrainian mob.  _ Jack pulls his gun out and steps deliberately in front of Mac. Mac wants to protest, but he knows Jack won’t let him win, and besides, he feels safer with Jack watching out for him. 

 They come out of a stand of scrubby trees, and Jack stops short, staring at something bloodied on the ground in front of them. A big animal trap. There’s a boot too, and Mac looks away, choking, before realizing the boot is empty.  _ I’ve heard stories about wild animals that gnaw their legs off when they get caught in traps.  _ The thought is not appealing.  _ Not that I think Sergei would cut his own foot off, but maybe whoever found him would have... _

“Ooh. That's not good. Mac, why would a radioactive bear trap snag Sergei?”

“I don't know.” Mac looks around. They didn’t hear the trap spring that long ago. Either Sergei somehow managed to get himself out, or someone else took him.  _ And whoever they are, they can’t be good.  _ He winces when he hears an engine start, then lets out a shaky breath. “But whatever pulled him out of it is taking him deeper into the exclusion zone.”

“You mean deeper into the zone oozing with radiation.”

“Same one.” Mac sighs. He’s not sure which he’s more worried about. Accidentally walking into a badly contaminated area, or coming face to face with whoever has their mark now. 

“Matty, can you get us a thermal of the area?” Jack asks.

“Why exactly do you need a thermal view?” Matty says, but from her tone Mac can already tell she knows. “You lost him, didn’t you?”

“Not our fault! Someone else is in here, Matty.” 

“Guys, I've been through every report on Chernobyl filed by the Five Eyes and the CIA. There should be absolutely no activity in that section of the exclusion zone.”

“Yeah, well, your secret reports are wrong, Matty.” Jack says, glancing down at the bloodied trap again. 

“I’m sorry guys,” Jill says. “The radiation mixed with dense cloud cover is making it hard to get solid thermal locks on anything. I’m picking up over fifty different heat sources, and I can’t get positive locks on any of them. Could be human, but also could be animals.”

“Or mutants,” Jack says. “Hey, any of them look a  _ lot _ hotter to you?”

“Jack…” Matty says warningly, and he stops talking. “You lost Sergei in Chernobyl? How do you lose someone in Chernobyl? It's deserted. You guys are basically the only ones around for miles.”

“Yeah, well, tell that to the people who just caught Sergei in a bear trap and then dragged him into a car.”

Mac sighs. “So, who took him, and where is he now?”  _ That’s the million dollar question.  _ He’s pretty sure they won’t have an answer for that. “Who uses bear traps? Is that a Ukrainian mob thing?”  _ If it is, that’s sick. Really sick. _

“No. They wouldn’t have known he was here anyway,” Jack says. “Those traps have probably been there since there were people here.” He narrows his eyes. “Or...they were left by the people who are still here. Who aren’t people at all. Some six-eyed freak is probably making a midafternoon snack of Sergei's face right now.” He mimes growling and eating, snarling and waving his hands around. 

“So if it wasn’t the mob, who was it, and how do we find them?” Riley’s voice comes through, a little crackly. “Guys, I’m headed your way, homing in on your signals. Radiation’s messing with my tracking a little but I ought to meet you in about ten minutes if you keep heading the way you were going.” 

“Roger that. We’ll see you there, Ri.” Jack glances at Mac. “Watch your step, Mac. There might be more of them things.” Mac nods, feeling a cold shudder run down his back at the thought of putting  _ his _ leg into one of those metal jaws. 

“Hey, Riley?” Mac asks. 

“Yeah.”

“Anything on tracking Sergei's phone?” 

Riley sounds out of breath, but maybe it’s just the bad connection they’re getting on comms. It’s getting worse the further in they’re getting. “Sorry, Mac. I got nothing. Sergei's phone is either off or broken, and I’m not surprised, given that he was running from the Ukrainian mob. Tracking's not gonna happen.”

Jack frowns, looking down. “Which means our only lead are these tire tracks. That lead straight to nuclear meltdown headquarters.”

They reach the road twelve minutes later by Jack’s watch, but Riley is nowhere in sight. Mac’s stomach clenches in worry. Maybe that out of breath sound on comms wasn’t just static.  _ What if she wrecked the bike? And she’s hurt, but she didn’t want to tell us? What if she got caught in one of those traps? _

Mac’s worried mental tirade is cut off by the sound of footsteps behind them. He turns to see Riley walking, pushing her motorcycle. 

“You’re late,” Jack observes, but Mac can hear the relief in his voice.  _ He was worried too.  _

“Right, Big Ben, next time I’ll time it down to the seconds. Been a little busy pushing around this piece of crap after it ran out of gas.”

“Yeah, why didn't you get rid of this thing?” 

“Well, I don't know. I thought we might need it.” Riley shrugs. “Mac?” He glances at the bike. There’s a few things he can think of off the top of his head, but until he knows more about what’s next, he doesn’t want to make a choice. 

“Matty, where does this road lead exactly?” 

“It looks like that dirt road your comm signals say you’re on leads to an abandoned town up ahead.”

“Maybe that's where Sergei was taken,” Riley says. “Heard we’re not getting any luck on thermals.” Mac nods. The cloud cover is rapidly darkening, and maybe it’s just his imagination but it feels like the air is full of mist. It’s making the chilly air cut with an even deeper bite, and he wishes he had something warmer than just his leather jacket over a flannel and t-shirt.  _ Maybe leaving the ghillie suits on the fence wasn’t such a good idea.  _

“How far into the exclusion zone is this town exactly?” Jack asks.

“A few miles,” Matty says. “Oh, and before you start complaining, Dalton, let me remind you: the sooner you get Sergei, the sooner you get out of there. So, if I were you, I'd start walking.”

Jack turns to Mac. “So how much radiation we talking about here, man? I mean, is it the good kind where you get superpowers? Or the bad kind where you're super dead?” 

“Yeah, well, there is no good kind. But we are ten away miles away from the site of the nuclear meltdown, so levels of the bad kind should be safe.” Mac glances at the bike. With a few modifications, and the help of Jack’s phone, he should be able to whip up something that can tell them a little more accurately what they’re dealing with. “I can build something to monitor those levels of radiation, but I’m gonna need…”

“My phone. Right. Of course.” Jack sighs. “Well, better my phone rewired into some mangled monstrosity than my DNA.” He pulls out the device and hands it over. “What you buildin’ there, kiddo?”

“My geiger counter.”

“Your MacGeiger counter. That's a little conceited of you.” Jack chuckles. Mac shakes his head.  _ In about three minutes you’re going to wish you hadn’t said anything. _ Riley groans. 

“Well, that's what he said,” Jack says defensively. “That's what he called it.”

Riley just sighs. “Radiation sickness I can deal with. Your puns I cannot.”

“He's getting big-headed,” Jack insists. 

Mac puts the finishing touches on the device and holds it up. Jack looks it over. “Nice. Is it supposed to already be clicking like that?” 

“Yeah. It's what it's supposed to do. Pick up levels of radiation.” At the look on Jack’s face, Mac raises an eyebrow. “Right now it's just low background levels.” He swings the counter toward Jack.  _ This is for making stupid jokes.  _ He fiddles slightly with the wiring, and the clicking gets faster and louder.

Jack looks down with a horror-stricken gaze. “Oh man, Mac, how bad is it?”

“I'm just kidding.” Mac chuckles. “I mean, it's picking up levels, but they're just low. Trust me, when it gets bad, you'll know.”

“How reassuring.” Jack sighs. “Okay, shake a leg, kiddos. Sergei isn’t gonna find himself.” The three of them start off along the road, and despite the fact that it’s starting to rain, they’re in the middle of a nuclear wasteland, and there are unknown bad guys up ahead, Mac’s enjoying the peacefulness. For now, he doesn’t have to do anything about James. But that’s still waiting for when he comes home. The envelope on his dresser will just keep taunting him.

_ I have to decide what to do. _ If he keeps chasing the man, he puts his team in the crosshairs, literally.  _ They won’t back off.  _ Even if he asks them to let him go alone, he knows they’ll refuse.  _ They’ll say it’s worth the risk. _ But he knows James didn’t make an idle threat. He will kill them if Mac doesn’t follow the rules. 

_ I have to choose. Finding him, or saving them. _ And the choice is easy. Except that there’s a third option.  _ I can go after him myself.  _ Mac knows that if Jack finds out there will be hell to pay. Honestly the same would be true of the rest of the team too. But it’s better than them dead. And if he can catch James he can end the man’s reign of terror.  _ And maybe I can finally move past his legacy. And my own past. _

* * *

CHERNOBYL

JACK LIKES TO TALK WHEN HE’S WORRIED

Riley sighs. This is getting old, fast. Jack mentioned superpowers back when Mac was working on the Geiger counter and now he won’t shut up about them. 

“You know, I’ve always thought of myself as a cross between Captain America and Superman. Like...maybe...America Man? No, no, wait. Super-Cap.” Jack shrugs. “Or, you know, maybe I’d be a shapeshifter. Like turn into a big-ass Game of Thrones wolf or something. It’s not an exact science.” Riley resists the urge to facepalm. 

“It’s not science at all,” Mac mumbles. “I’ve told you already, radiation can’t give superpowers. It’s like any other mutation, it tends toward entropy. I could show you the equations…”

“I’m just trying to think of an upside to us being stuck in this radioactive wasteland,” Jack mutters. “Would you rather play, I Spy? I spy something...brown…”  _ Everything here is brown.  _

“Okay, I’ll bite, what’s my power?” Riley asks. She hopes they get to this town soon, or radiation is going to be the least of Jack’s problems. 

Jack frowns, clearly concentrating hard on this. “Well, Cage stole mind reading...honestly Mac, I think you’re gonna have to prove  _ she _ doesn’t have superpowers before your little theory is airtight...so...Electricity.”

“Like lightning?” Riley asks. “That’s random.”

“Well, ain’t that how computers work? Little bitty on-off switches or somethin?” He shrugs. “You could hack stuff with your mind. That’d be cool, right?”  _ I love when he proves he knows more than he pretends to. _

“Or I could just electrify you and not have to listen to you anymore…” She chuckles. 

“Hey Mac, Riley says if she gets a superpower she’s gonna kill me. How’s that for ungrateful?” Jack says. “I bring her here, let her have the chance to get mutated into one of the most powerful beings on earth, and she wants to murder me.”

Mac doesn’t answer. Riley’s noticed that he’s been distant lately. All week, as a matter of fact. Ever since they got back from Cage’s sister’s wedding.  _ I need Sam’s mind-reading expertise. _ But she’s still finishing the last of her field recertification training.  _ She healed better from the shooting than anyone expected.  _ Sam doesn’t plan on being a full field operative again, but Matty okayed her for reserve tac team status, and now she’s got to go through the physical qualifiers again. 

Recerts suck, Riley had one after Como.  _ It took a few weeks to set it up after everything with Nick, but I did have to do it. _ Mac is the only agent she knows who takes condensed, less involved versions after major injuries.  _ Except when Matty took over, after the helicopter crash in Kazakhstan.  _ She remembers him confiding in her (much later) that he was terrified he wouldn’t pass and Matty would send him back to prison. 

Mac likes to internalize whatever he’s worried about, and right now it seems like he’s actively doing that. “Mac? Is something bothering you?” Riley asks.

His chuckle sounds forced. “Nope, just thinking about what kind of crazy power Jack thinks I’m gonna get.” 

“Mac, I hate to say it bud but there’s really only one power I can think of for you. Fire.” Jack shrugs. “Or, you know, those plasma ring things like Havok. In X-Men. Right, Riley? He kinda would make a good Havok.”

“Jack…” Riley groans. 

“Come on, dude! You...even kinda look like the guy.” Jack waves a hand vaguely in his direction. “You could totally pull that off. Next Halloween, man. I’m gonna make you do it.” Riley snorts and shakes her head.  _ Yeah, right. As if Mac would ever dress up in anything even close to skintight spandex.  _

“Jack. First of all, that’s not how plasma works. I  _ could _ build a working plasma beam, but it wouldn’t create those kind of rings.”  _ Why am I not surprised in the least? _ “Second of all, how many times do I have to say this, radiation does  _ not _ give you superpowers. It just makes you dead.” 

“I still think you should do it for Halloween.” Jack says. “Maybe not the working plasma beam part, you might burn the house down. But I bet Bozer would be totally on board with this. He could make a great costume.”

“If you ask Bozer about this…” Jack sneezes, and Riley glares at him. Mac stops short, cutting off whatever threat he was about to make, but it looks like he’s more interested in what’s on the ground than in Jack’s allergies. “Tire tracks stop here, where the pavement starts.” 

“Guess we can say good-bye to that trail we were following.” Riley sighs. She can’t even pull sat views anymore. The interference is too strong.  _ Actually, that’s not all radioactive. There’s some kind of video stream happening. _ She wonders if it’s some kind of ransom of Sergei.  _ Hope it’s not his live execution feed.  _ She’s not sure if the Ukrainian mob is into that kind of thing.

If she can tap in, she might be able to get a lock on where it’s coming from. “Guys, I have something. A live video feed that’s being transmitted. I’m going to try and hack in now. It’s pretty heavily encrypted, but I think I can crack it if you give me a few minutes.”

“A few minutes? Ri, by then the CHUDs are gonna smell us.”

“CHUDs?” Mac asks. 

“Yeah, yeah, it's a classic film, dude. Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers.” Jack shakes his head. “Man, my spidey senses are tingling bigtime. I think we’re being watched.”

“Jack, there aren’t any mutated beings around here. This whole town looks empty,” Mac insists. 

“Hold on.” Riley’s just gotten into the video feed. And there are several devices connected to the network. One is less than fifty feet away. “I hate to admit it, but I think Jack's right.”

“See? She's seen the film.”

“Not the CHUDs. Look.” Riley points toward the wall where her rig is pinging one of the devices. “What is a camera that was built in the last five years doing in a town that was supposed to be abandoned for 30 years?” 

“Technologically advanced mutants.” Jack pulls out his gun, checking the mag. “Hope they like lead.” 

Riley follows the signal to a hotspot where several devices are connected at once. “Hey guys, this is it.” At this point they don’t need her to confirm. There’s the thumping bass of some Russian pop song spilling out of the building. Jack kicks in the door, ignoring the glare from Mac who was pulling out a paperclip and his knife to pick the lock, and is narrowly missed by someone hurtling past.

“Whoa! What the hell dude?” The guy’s doing some kind of weird acrobatic flip. Jack points at him, turning back to Mac and Riley and looking equal parts triumphant and freaked out. “See? Mutants!”

Riley sighs. “ _Not_ mutants, Jack. I think these are stalkers. Kids who sneak into Chernobyl and use it as their personal playground. They film their stunts and post the videos online.” She steps forward. “ _Хтось із вас бачив, як сьогодні проїжджає машина?”_ _Have any of you seen a car go by today?_

“That depends on who is asking.” A young man with curly black hair and one hand covered in geometric tattoos turns around to face her. He twists a short switchblade effortlessly through his fingers.

“The guy with the gun,” Jack says, raising his at the sight of the knife. “That’s who, sport.”

Mac raises his hands placatingly. “And we’re not here to make trouble. Just trying to find a friend. We think he came through here.” 

The kid’s eyes flicker from Jack’s gun to the Swiss Army knife still in Mac’s hand, bright and clearly visible. “I might be able to help. For the right price.” He nods at the knife.

“Oh, no.” Jack shakes his head. “You ain’t gettin’ his knife, man.” He takes off the wolf ring on his pinky. “You already got a knife, what you need another one for? Here, this goes great with your whole apocalyptic grunge look.” Riley notices a few rings of various sizes and shapes on the boy’s tattooed hand. 

“You’re giving him Beowulf?” She whispers.  _ I know, I know. Jack’s weird. _ He got that ring from a guy selling jewelry out of the back of a truck on their near disastrous op in Caracas, and he claims it’s a lucky charm. She’d asked him about the name on the way back, and the only thing he’d say was ‘You don't have to read Beowulf to know it's a super cool name, Riley’. 

“You named your wolf ring ‘Beowulf’?” Mac asks. “Listen, I’ll just give him my knife, you don’t have to…”

“Mac. Giving him your knife is like giving him my gun. You need that. I’ll get along fine without him.” He pulls the ring off his finger and holds it up. “Sure, we're not gonna find  _ another _ Beowulf, but you know, maybe it’s time to change things up. Get me a dragon instead. I’m thinking ‘Draco’.”

This time Riley does facepalm.

“I’ll take it.” The voice from the other side of the room cuts them off. 

Jack hands him the ring, and the guy slides it onto one finger. “Okay, you got what you wanted. Now tell me what you know.”

“I heard a car go by. Not long ago. I didn’t go outside to see what it was. It’s better if people don’t see us.”

“Hey. You gotta know more than that.  Better start talking, you little rug rat, or I'm taking Beowulf back.” Jack glares pointedly at where his ring is now attached to a finger, and it looks like the kid notices that too. 

“Your friend is probably dead. And if he is not, he soon will be.” His face has gone paler, they’ve clearly struck a nerve. 

“Who took him?” Riley asks. 

“ _ Potvori _ .”

Riley turns to Jack, and she knows her eyes have gone wide. “That's Ukrainian for ‘monsters’.” 

“Yeah, Ri, I know.” Jack glances at the boy. “Monsters? Like, like, mutant monsters? 'Cause that would really settle an argument we've been having.”

“I'm sure it's just a nickname,” Mac offers, but his voice is weak and unsteady. Riley glances over at him, he looks pretty creeped out. This whole thing is getting on her nerves too.  _ There’s no such thing as mutants. Right?  _

“What can you tell us about these monsters?” Riley asks, hoping he’ll say something that clearly reveals that they’re human.  

“Our friend Vasily got caught by  _ Potvori _ last month.” The boy shudders. 

“And where is this Vasily now?” Jack asks. 

The boy’s face is ashen, and Riley can tell he’s not lying or exaggerating about this. “We found him staggering in the road, beaten; covered in blood. We asked him what happened. Wouldn't say much. But that day he walked out of Chernobyl, he never came back.”

“And where was Vasily when he ran into these monsters?” 

“Their base.”

“The monsters have a base?” Jack says incredulously, turning to Riley with an ‘I told you so’ stare.  

“I am the one who dared him to sneak in there. It's my fault he almost died.” The boy lowers his head, and his voice is shaky.  _ Damn, that’s a hard thing to live with I’m sure. _ Riley knows kids like this take their life in their hands doing what they do. For a while, she was part of a very similar group.  _ We hacked instead of climbing walls, but the premise was the same. Do it better, faster, and flashier every time. Take big risks to feel alive. _ And one thing she knows, for sure, is that these are kids who have made this crazy group their family. 

_ Home lives probably suck.  _ Family is either nonexistent, distant, or actually abusive. They come here to connect with other people who get it, who have the same experiences. Who feel the same detachment and desire to tempt fate. 

“Listen. I’m sorry about what happened to Vasily. But we’re trying to catch those men so they can’t hurt anyone else like him. Is there any chance you could tell us how to find the base?”

The boy swallows. “You can’t stop them. If they catch you, they will kill you.”

“Trust me, we deal with people like that all the time.” Riley says. “And it’s better for you and your friends if they’re gone, am I right?” He nods slowly. 

“Yeah, kid, don’t worry about us,” Jack says. He looks from Riley to Mac. “We can handle ourselves with a few monsters.” The kid’s eyes flick down to Jack’s wrist, where his leather cuff is visible. “Hey, here, I’ll even sweeten the deal.” Jack pulls the cuff off and holds it out. “All we want to know is where to find these guys.”

“It’s outside town. On the same road. You can’t miss it. Big building, lots of trucks parked by it.” The boy shudders. “That is all I can tell you.”

“All we need. Let’s go.” Jack turns to the door, and Riley follows him, Mac bringing up the rear. 

“You didn’t need to give him your stuff, Jack,” Mac says once they’re leaving town. He looks cold and miserable, arms tight around himself as the chilly mist starts falling faster. “I could have worked something out, fixed something for them. I’m sure there was…”

“Hey, it’s not a big deal. Okay?” Jack turns to him. “You need that knife to do your job and stay alive.” 

“I guess we’re lucky you like to wear things teenagers find cool?” Riley says, shrugging.

Jack glares at her. “I don't wear it for their approval, Riley, thank you very much. He better hope this was worth it. Because if he sent us on a wild goose chase, I’m going back there and taking my stuff back.”

* * *

SEATTLE COFFEE SHOP

DEFINITELY AS COOL AS RUMORED

Bozer takes a sip of his latte and then grins at Leanna. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

“Thanks, but I’ll pass on the sugar high.” Leanna collects her own drink, a flavored blend of coffee that she’s taking almost black, aside from some almond milk and dark chocolate added. “And I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t be great for my lactose intolerance, and I left my tablets back at the office in my desk.”

_ No sweet coffee. No milk. _ Bozer mentally adds those to the list he’s compiling in his head about how not to do the wrong thing around Leanna. He didn’t know about the milk thing. But given that they haven’t spent a whole lot of time together, he gets it. He thought she ate some cheese at the wine resort they went undercover at, but then again, she said she takes something for it, and she was probably trying to blend in.

“Earth to Bozer?” Leanna asks. He blinks. “I know, the coffee here is amazing, but I didn’t think it was  _ that  _ heavenly. You look like you’re having an out of body experience. Or a sugar coma.” 

“Sorry. Just thinking.”

“About the case?” Leanna asks, pulling him to a quiet corner booth. He doesn’t want to admit to the truth, so he nods. “Okay, now you  _ have  _ to tell me everything.” 

Bozer sets down his coffee. “Okay. Matty sent me here to find out who got a CIA informant put on a hit list by the Ukrainian mob.” 

“I heard chatter that the CIA lost an informant over there.” Leanna frowns. “You’re saying someone in the CIA tipped off the mob that they had an inside man?” 

“Yes. Sergei was paranoid. The only way the mob could have found out he was sharing intel, and known enough about where to find him, was if they had inside information of their own.”

Leanna takes another drink of her coffee. “I’m a little hazy on where I come in. The CIA is huge. And it could have been anyone at any site who had access to our database and knew the finer points of hacking. Which is most of us.”

Bozer nods. “Which is why we don’t need to ask around. Riley created a program that can backtrace file unlocks to the people who opened them. We just need you to install it in that server and then use it to see who opened the file on Sergei recently. If no one suspicious did, that means someone in his team in country must have turned him in, and that’s a much shorter suspect list.” 

“And that required you coming all the way to Seattle why, exactly?” Leanna runs one finger around the top edge of her coffee cup, and Bozer notices distractedly that she’s wearing a simple silver ring on her index finger. It looks more like a man’s ring than a woman’s, and he wonders who it came from.  _ She wouldn’t be two-timing me. Would she? _ Or maybe she’s met the perfect guy out here in Seattle and she doesn’t want to break it to him while they’re in the middle of a job. He swallows hard and forces himself to continue. 

“Until we know who we can trust, you’re the only one who can know what we’re doing.”

“You want me to..sneak into the server room, plant Riley’s virus, and get out unseen? In my own agency?” Leanna shakes her head. “You really, really, just want us to get court-martialed, don’t you?”

“Well, since ‘forbidden spy school relationship’ won’t do it…” Bozer looks up at her. “And besides, I know how to break into the CIA. I’ve seen  _ Mission Impossible  _ at least twenty times.” He pushes his coffee aside and leans across the table. “This seems like a good place to plan a break in, right?”

As it turns out, it’s not even close to Mission Impossible. There’s absolutely no way to access the server room through ventilation if they don’t want to get fried by laser grids, which can only be disabled if you have the maintenance override codes, or someone like Riley. 

It’s more of a simple con. Bozer pretends to be hopelessly lost, his visitor badge gives that some genuine credence, and while the door guard is busy trying to explain to the apparently rock-headed guest where Conference Room C-13 is, Leanna swipes into the server room with a badge she lifted from the IT guy she called to ‘fix’ her frozen desk computer. 

The cameras were another story, but thanks to a quick consult with Jill, Bozer learned how to kill some fuses in a maintenance closet and shut off the monitors without frying out the whole complex. Someone’s definitely noticed by now, but hopefully it will look like a case of overuse of the break room coffeemaker blew a couple fuses and caused a short. Mac’s paperclip tricks came in awfully handy. 

Leanna steps out, closing the door softly, and Bozer lets his face switch to one of understanding just before the guard picks up Bozer’s own right hand to demonstrate the difference between right and left.  _ Great, I just made myself look like a total dork. But I’ll probably never see him again, so… _

Once they get back to the desk, Leanna logs into the database mainframe and opens a search, pulling up the hidden file that houses Riley’s crawler virus. A few minutes later, the program is searching through Sergei’s entire file and flagging any access, alterations, or other interactions the file has had over the past three months.

Most of them, as Bozer watches the list compile itself, are routine. A check-in every Monday is noted by one of two field handlers. A few calls are also noted, as well as the transcripts of them; some of the peripheral information Sergei was handing over on the Ukrainian mob is discussed. 

And then something very much not routine pops up onscreen. A buzz of activity the day before Sergei had a hit put out on him. 

Leanna opens each individual timestamped record. 

“The last person to access Sergei’s file was this user.” A string of letters and numbers is the only ID. _ Weird. _

“Is that some kind of outside third party?” Bozer asks. “Was there a hack?”

“No.” Leanna’s mouth is a tight line. “That’s the user ID masking for top level CIA operatives. Regional supervisors and higher.” 

“Is there any way we can find out who that belongs to?” Bozer asks. 

“Yes, it’s just meant to protect their names from anyone external to the organization.” Leanna pulls up another file. “All I have to do is cross reference that ID with other interdepartmental memos and eventually I’ll get a hit on something that gives us an identity.” 

“So until you get a hit, we’re just sitting here cooling our heels?” Bozer asks. 

“Yeah.” Leanna looks up. “I’m sorry. This is boring.”

“Nothing is boring with you.” He smiles. 

“You wouldn’t say this if you worked here.” Leanna sighs. “The undercover I was on with you? Most excitement I had in weeks. Not counting our little act of treason just now.” 

“You deserve so much more.” He leans over, running a hand over her fingers. His fingers brush against the silver ring, and he forces himself not to think about it. “I’m going to talk to Matty. See if there’s an opening for you at Phoenix. We’re way more exciting.” He grins. “Right now, Mac, Jack, and Riley are in Chernobyl.” 

“If that’s your brand of exciting, maybe I’ll stick to riding a desk.” Leanna chuckles. Her computer dings, and she glances at it. “We got a hit.” She pulls open a chain email sent between regional directors. “Don’t tell anyone I gave myself access to this.” She scrolls down, and then stops. Bozer can practically watch the blood drain out of her face. “That’s Victor Kahn.” Leanna gasps. “He’s one of our Eastern European division supervisors. We have to get this to my boss, right now.” 

* * *

THE MONSTERS’ BASE

THEY’RE PROBABLY NOT MUTANTS

“I’m telling you. Under those suits, they got four extra arms and they’re probably green.” 

Mac sighs. Jack keeps coming up with weirder and weirder ideas for what they’re looking at.  _ It’s just a bunch of people in hazmat suits. Not that that’s better, really… _

“Well, whatever they are, they look unfriendly. I think we found the monsters,” Riley mumbles. 

“Who the hell are they, and what are they doing out here?” Jack asks.

“No clue.” Mac pushes himself a little further back against the wall they’re hiding behind as a vehicle pulls up. “Check it out.” Cutting across country saved them a lot of time that the car must have spent traversing the badly damaged road. Mac can see a fairly new tire change as well, the spare is visibly different from the others.  _ For once, luck was on our side. _ A couple guards pop the trunk open and drag out a groaning, cursing man. Mac can see blood seeping through his pants at the ankle, and one foot is bare. “Good news is: Sergei's still alive.”

“Yeah, and the bad news is: we have to get through the Soylent Green people eaters to get to him.” Jack says. “Dude, they probably have claws. And laser eyes.” Mac glares at him. “Well, we should assume the worst, just to be on the safe side, right?” 

Riley shoves his shoulder. “Question is: what the hell are they doing out here?” 

“Well, judging from their radioactive suits, can't be good.” Mac shrugs. 

“Agreed.” Matty speaks up. “And I will make some calls. I will put these people on everyone's radar, but let me be clear. Our objective remains the same: to get Sergei.” 

“Okay, Matty, but we're still gonna need help getting in the building and circumventing the radioactive rager going on by the front door right now,” Jack says. 

Mac glances the building over quickly. It’s not so different from his days breaking into cartel warehouses, and in more ways than simply the type of building. “Yeah, every door and window that I can see from here is either inaccessible or guarded.” They’re going to have to get creative. 

“Riley, can you pull up a sat image of the building?” Jack asks. 

“Yeah. Might take a while though. Got next to no connection out here and the radiation coming off that place is throwing everything off even more.” 

Mac stares up at the grimy brick facade. “This place is huge. There's got to be another way in.”

“How about I just save you three some time and show you the way in?” Matty says. “Riley, incoming.”

“What magic trick did you pull to make this happen, Bss Lady?” Jack asks. 

After your little run-in with the stalkers, I had our techs scrub through all their online videos. We found the one Vasily recorded when he snuck into that warehouse.”

“You really can learn how to do anything on YouTube,” Jack chuckles as Riley finishes downloading the video and presses play. “Fix a leaky faucet, change your oil, and break into radioactive bad guy hideouts. One stop shop.” He frowns as the image shows Vasiliy’s hands moving up a pipe, and then a shaky moment as he seems to jump sideways from there to the roof. “Okay, that looks...interesting. Where on the building is this, exactly?”

“Let me run it back.” Riley does, and this time they follow the same movements the camera is. Mac’s glad it’s starting to get dark. That’s always an advantage when you’re breaking into places you’d rather not get caught trying to sneak into. 

“So we’re just supposed to parkour our way up there?” Jack asks, staring at the vertical wall of stained red brick. 

“Actually, yeah. If one of us can reach those telephone lines, then that can make a decent rope for everyone else.” Mac glances at his hands, then the wall. “I don’t know how great my climbing skills are anymore, but I think I can still make it.”

“Hey, don’t kill yourself kiddo. We’ll find another way…”

“Any other way takes too long.” Mac clenches his jaw, staring up at the wall.  _ I really hate heights. _ If he falls, it’s going to hurt. And probably draw attention to them. But it’s the only shot they have, and Sergei is running out of time. He gets a running start, grabs the drain pipe that he saw on the video, and pulls himself up hand over hand.

The rusted metal bites into his palms. He lost his calluses a long time ago, in prison, and then any rebuilt toughness got lost when he burned them in New Orleans. They’ve only just properly healed, and he hopes this doesn’t damage the new skin too badly. He’d like to avoid that particular kind of injury for a long time. 

He reaches a level with the lower section of roof and throws himself over to it. He’s judged the distance well, and he hauls himself over the edge with minimal trouble, then starts to rip down the phone cable to drop to Jack and Riley. 

“Nice work, Mac,” Jack says when he climbs up. “Boy, you musta really been good back in the day.”

“When your options are learn parkour or get caught by cartel goons or cops, you learn fast.” Still, it’s a skill Mac is proud of. It’s not something James tried to teach him, not like his science or math knowledge, or even the paperclip bending. Sometimes, now, that feels tainted.  _ Everything I know, I learned from a monster. _ But this, this he taught himself. 

They slip in through a stairwell window and start making their way to ground level. Mac hopes the stairs don’t creak. 

Riley’s rig makes a soft ping, and they all turn to stare at her. She looks guilty and immediately switches her rig to silent, then glances at the notification

“Guys, Sergei’s phone is on.” Riley looks up at them, her face lit strangely by the teal-green glow from her screen. “There’s so much interference from the waste in here that it took till now to pick up the signal. But it’s somewhere in the building.”

“Can you trace it?”

“Not likely. I can try to clean up the interference, but there’s a lot of leaking radiation in there.” She glances up at them. “It’s definitely somewhere in that main loading bay, though.” 

“Then that’s where we’re headed.”  

It’s hard navigating the building in the dark, and Mac hopes his clumsiness doesn’t choose now to reassert itself. He doesn’t need to trip over something in the dark and bring these guys, whatever they are, down on top of them. 

There’s a little more light ahead of them, a yellowish glow like industrial lighting spilling out through a small window in a door to their left. Jack reaches for the door and then stops, pulling back. Mac can hear movement on the other side. At first he assumes that’s why Jack stopped, but then he sees the man’s hand come up and pinch the bridge of his nose, stifling a sneeze. 

Mac peeks through the wire-lined glass in the door. It takes a moment to readjust to the brightness, but he can see men and forklifts moving massive yellow barrels into the backs of several military cargo trucks. There are clear radiation hazard labels on all the barrels.

Jack joins him at the window, sniffing like he’s trying to hold back yet another sneeze. “Man. I’m tellin’ you. I am allergic to the ol’ gamma rays.” He looks out at the trucks. “Well, this is a big, steamy pile of no bueno.”

“Guys, I may be way off base here, but, um shouldn't a bunch of radioactive waste be stored in an officially sanctioned nuclear disposal site?” Riley says.

“Unfortunately, I just realized what these guys are doing.” Mac can feel the cold ball of halfway disbelieving fear forming in the pit of his stomach. “They’re stealing radioactive waste, smuggling it outside of the exclusion zone, probably for sale on the black market.”

“Dirty bombs.” Jack mutters. “Rig just one of those barrels with enough explosive, and the resulting kaboom…” 

“Could render a major city unlivable for, oh, 10,000 years.” Mac says. His phone starts buzzing, and he yanks it out of his pocket, slipping back out of range of the door to answer in a clipped whisper. “Bozer, we’re kind of in the middle of something…”

“We know. But Leanna just got a positive match on who leaked Sergei’s file, and it’s a CIA bigwig. Victor Kahn.” Mac flinches.  _ Yikes. Just what we need. Adding a mole hunt to the to-do list. _

Leanna’s voice cuts in. “He left the Yemen field office under allegations of collaborating with some of his ‘informants’ in less than legal activities, but the investigation went nowhere, and he continued to climb the ranks, even after he was transferred to the less than desirable Ukraine posting.”

“Yeah, I wonder why,” Jack says. “Guys who like to deal under the table usually have plenty of money to spread around in the right places.” He glances at the bustle of activity in the loading bay. “And those guys in there are speaking English. At least some of them. I bet our dirty bomb dealers are none other than Khan’s minions; he didn’t stop playing with terrorists, just moved his little operation to somewhere he was less likely to get noticed. Looks like Sergei must have stumbled onto his side hustle.” 

“In more ways than one,” Leanna says. “There’s a note in Sergei’s file that his handler left. Said he was about to give them something big. Something even bigger than the Ukrainian mob, and it was happening in Chernobyl. That’s when the handlers sent the file up the line to Khan, and he must have realized he was about to get outed, or at the very least lose a very profitable situation.” 

“So he leaked Sergei’s information to the mob to shut him up.” Mac sighs. “Which means Sergei is probably already dead.” 

“Guys.” Riley holds up her rig. “Someone just sent Sergei a text.  **Dmitry accepts your terms. Cash for the rat. One hour.** ” 

“If there's a silver lining to all this confusion, at least we know our boy Sergei's still alive and kicking, right?” Jack says. 

Riley looks like she’s about as confused by the sudden inundation of new intel as Jack. “Well, for the next 60 minutes, yeah.” 

“Okay, so we have one hour to find Sergei, get him away from a group of international criminals led by a CIA bad apple selling radioactive waste before the Ukrainian mob shows up to kill him. Did I miss anything, Matty?” Mac sighs, clenching his fists against his legs.  _ If we grab Sergei without dealing with these guys, we’ll tip them off and they’ll disappear before anyone gets here to do anything.  _ Being overwhelmed in a situation like this was par for the course when he was a vigilante, but he’s gotten used to knowing what he’s walking into ahead of time thanks to Phoenix’s advanced intel gathering.  _ Breathe. You’ve done this before. You can do it again. _ There was just less...lethal radiation involved last time he underestimated what he was walking into. And a man still died.

_ That wasn’t my fault. Not really. _ But spending two years believing he was responsible for killing Ramsay is hard to shake.  _ I got in over my head there too. Couldn’t just move the guns, had to blow them. And it got me caught. _ This time, getting caught won’t mean handcuffs and a prison sentence. It’ll mean a bullet to the head.  _ Maybe quick and painless would actually be better. _

“Um, we have one more problem.” Riley holds up her rig. “That text was actually sent twelve minutes ago. I just got in range to pick it up.” 

Matty’s voice is crisp. “All right, people, we are T-minus 47 minutes and counting until the Ukrainians come to collect Sergei, which means our goal remains simple: get Sergei first.”

“Yeah, we're fully aware of that, Matty, but this place is gigantic. It's like trying to find him in a Walmart Supercenter.”

“And finding Sergei is only half the problem. What are we gonna do about Kahn's radioactive waste?” Mac’s mind is whirling.  _ I can’t leave the problem half solved. Sergei is important, but so is not losing the chance to bring these guys down before they give someone the chance to make a really bad dirty bomb.  _

“I have a tac team en route to get Kahn and his men. They're two hours out.” 

“No, no, no. Matty, the trucks will be loaded and gone by then. If we let any of this stuff drive out that door, next time we see it is gonna be when a dirty bomb explodes in a major city.” Mac shudders. He can’t be responsible for that.  _ I wouldn’t be to anyone but me. _ But the truth is, he still feels like he killed George Ramsay.  _ At the very least I gave someone the place to hide a body.  _ And from what’s come out after everything, it sounds like Ramsay was in charge of keeping an eye ont he gun shipment.  _ When I blew them, I got him killed. _ He knows he probably saved hundreds more lives, but he can’t ignore the fact that his actions led to a murder. And it wasn’t the first time someone died because of him. “We can’t let them leave. We have to stop them.”

“I understand that, Mac, but your orders are to get Sergei.”

“Well, then my orders are wrong.” He doesn’t know why he blurted that out, and he bites his tongue, feeling the coppery taste of blood spilling into his mouth.  _ What are you thinking? _

Jack is staring at him. "Dude, have you gone too far back into your vigilante alter ego? You're seriously arguing with  _ Matty the Hun _ ?"

“Do we have a problem, MacGyver?” Matty asks. Her voice is gentler than it should be after what he’s just said. 

“No, we do not, but we will if we let any of that waste drive out this building. Look, Matty, I'm asking you to trust me and I'm telling you we can both get Sergei and stop those barrels from being shipped out. A tac team might be too late, especially when these guys realize someone took Sergei. They’ll pull out and you could miss them. We're here now and we can definitely stop them. I wouldn't say this if I was alone. But I have a team now. And we should utilize that."

“Okay Mac. What's your plan?”  

“Pretty simple.I go disable the trucks. YJack and Riley grab Sergei, and we get the hell out of here.” 

“So we’re splitting up?” Jack asks. “Man, when is that ever a good idea? I’ve seen the movie. This is when we all go our separate ways and the expendable crew member gets eaten by a creature from the Upside Down or a horde of radioactive zombies or something.”

“Don’t worry, Jack, you’re far from expendable,” Riley chuckles. 

“Mac. At least let me go in there with all the guys with guns and barrels full of radioactive sludge.” Jack frowns. “I don’t want you in there unprotected, kiddo.”

“Oh, I won’t be.” Mac’s already marked the guard near the entrance he’s planning to use. The guy’s the right approximate height that his hazmat suit should fit. And if he has that on, with luck, no one will look too closely at him. “Good luck.” He turns and runs off down the hall.

* * *

INSIDE THE WAREHOUSE

THERE ARE CHUDS HERE SOMEWHERE

JACK CAN FEEL IT

“Mac, how’s it going in there, kiddo?” Jack asks. His comm crackles with nothing but static. “Damn it. Riley, can’t you fix this?”

“Cinderblock walls, iron rebar, and radiation? No, Jack, I cannot ‘fix this’.” Riley looks up at him. “Mac will be okay. He’s done stuff like this before. He can handle himself.”

“He shouldn’t have to do it this way anymore,” Jack grumbles. This op is clearly hitting close to home with Mac’s vigilante past, and Jack is trying hard not to let his mind go down the same rabbit hole. What little he knows of that time in the kid’s life is full of fear and pain and darkness.  “Okay. We’ve got thirty minutes left to find Sergei, not get caught by the radioactive bad guys, and get ourselves and Mac outta here before the Ukrainian mob shows up.” He glances down the dark hallway. There’s a sign with the word for medical station on it, and he has an idea. “Come on, Riley.”

Inside, there’s a medical kit that’s already been rifled through for supplies. Jack zips it closed, and then grabs two hazmat suits from a pile in a corner. “Suit up, kiddo.” She does. Jack hopes Mac found some kind of protective gear before he went out there with all those barrels. At least here the radiation isn’t so bad, he and Riley need the suits as disguises more than anything else. 

He walks up to the guard in the hallway, carrying the bag, and Riley following him. “ _ Я шукаю в'язня, якого поранили. _ ” The man doesn’t respond. “Oh hey, are you one of the guys that speaks English? Serious dude, you all look the same in those suits.” 

“Who are you exactly?”

“Come on, man. Really? I’ve worked with Khan since he got this whole thing started.” Jack shrugs. “I was a field medic in Afghanistan. And he told me to get down here and check on the guy, make sure he doesn’t bleed out before the boss gets his money.” 

“Fine. He’s in the basement. Two floors down.” The man nods to the stairs. “Good luck. He’s a troublemaker.”

Jack heads for the stairs, Riley following him. He’s pretty sure the only door that has a guard in front of it on the level they step out on must be the one Sergei is in. A right hook takes out the guard before he even knows what’s happening, and Jack unlocks the door. 

A fist swings at him, and he just has time to duck. 

“Whoa! Sergei!” He grabs the man’s arm, and Sergei falls to the ground with a gasp of pain.  _ Guy must have been running on adrenaline to get on his feet and make an escape attempt like that.  _ It reminds him a little too much of some things he’s seen Mac do.  _ The kid isn’t any too careful with his own health and safety. Takes too many risks. _ And now he’s upstairs, surrounded by barrels of radioactive waste and people who will shoot him on sight.

“ _ Ми тут, щоб допомогти вам _ ! We’re here to help you!” Riley insists, stepping inside.

“Yeah, man, we’re not with them. We just look like it.” Jack sighs. “Sorry. Only way to get you out.” Jack starts pulling the radiation suit off the unconscious guard. “Here, get dressed. We’re leaving.”

“Who are you people?” Sergei asks. “You are not CIA, are you?”

“Nope. Phoenix Foundati...achoo!” Jack sneezes again.

“You are the people who were chasing me in the woods. The sneezing man.” Sergei looks frightened.

“Yeah, that’s him. Sneezing man.” Riley chuckles. “But I promise, we’re not trying to hurt you. We’re here to pick you up and bring you back to the US.” She raises her hands. “If we wanted you dead, you’d be dead by now. Right?”

Sergei stares, then nods. “Thank God,” he sighs. “The CIA are trying to kill me. They are the ones who told Dmitry about me.” 

“We know. And we know the man who did it is behind this whole smuggling operation too.” Jack sighs. “We’re gonna get you out of here so you can testify against him, okay?” 

“That is how he knew my name?” Sergei says as Riley helps him to his feet and Jack clears the hallway before they step out. “I was hoping they were only scavengers, opportunists. People who might not mind my help. But then one of them told me the boss wanted me back. Called me by name. I thought I was a dead man.” 

“Well, you aren’t yet.” Jack says. “But let’s save the celebration for after we get the hell outta here, okay?” He glances at the man’s leg, hoping he doesn’t start bleeding through his suit. “Can you walk?”

“I guess we will find out.” 

"I like your attitude, my man. Now let's get going." The sooner he gets back to that crazy kid with a death wish, the better he's going to feel.  _Mac, you better be okay._  

* * *

SEATTLE AIRPORT

TOO SOON

“I’m sorry I can’t stay longer,” Bozer says, pulling his bag out of the car. “But duty calls.” He’s got a rush order on five masks, and they won’t make themselves. 

“It was good to see you again, even just for a day.” Leanna says, wrapping her arms around him. 

“And I was serious when I said I’d put in a good word for you with Matty,” Bozer says. “If you want it.” He looks down at her hand as she pulls back, where he can see the silver ring shining.

“Why wouldn’t I want it, Bozer? Now that we know your boss is okay with you dating me, I’d love to work with you every day.”  _ That doesn’t sound like she’s made a new boyfriend in Seattle to me. _

But Bozer can’t leave without knowing for sure, or it’s going to eat at him. “Leanna, where’s the ring from?” He reaches out and twists it around her finger gently. “I thought maybe someone else gave it to you. Someone who could give you more than I can.” 

She looks down at it and he could swear he sees tears shimmering in her eyes. “It’s my dad’s.” 

“Oh.” It’s all he can choke out.  _ Some secret agent you are, Wilt Bozer. Jumped to a big fat wrong conclusion. And now you’ve hurt her. _ “I’m sorry…” He stops, because Leanna is still talking. So quietly he almost missed it. 

“I bounced through the foster system for almost ten years. I was...a problem child.” Bozer cringes. He knows he and Deja were lucky Mom lasted until both of them were old enough to avoid that fate.  _ And Mac came to live with us after Harry died or he could have ended up there too. _ He wonders if he just gravitates to people with family issues. “And then the Martins happened.” She chuckles weakly. “I gave them hell for months, but they never gave up on me. And eventually, I started to believe they really cared, that someone could actually want me.” 

“That’s wonderful.” 

“Dad was a cop, he’s the reason I decided to make a career out of criminal justice and get into the CIA,” Leanna says softly. She twirls the ring. “He passed away three years ago.”

“Oh, Leanna, I’m so sorry.” Bozer says. He looks down at the ring again, as Leanna pulls it off her finger and holds it up so he can see it better. “I wish I could have met him. He sounds like a wonderful man and a great father.”

“He was. And I was so sad that he wouldn't get to see me finish my education and become someone like him. I wanted to carry a piece of him with me through it all. So I got his ring resized and I wear it there to remind myself he’d be proud of where I’ve gotten to.” 

“He would be. I know it. That’s amazing. I’m sorry I thought it might have been a boyfriend’s or something.”

“Don’t be. You’d never seen it before, I understand.” She smiles. “I wasn’t allowed to have personal jewelry during training, and I don’t wear it in the field. I don’t want to lose it.” 

“Thank you. For telling me all this.” Bozer says softly. “It can’t be easy to talk about it.”

“You were already honest with me. About your brother. It made me realize I could be honest with you, and you’d understand.” She leans up to kiss him. “Now go, or you’re going to miss your flight.” 

* * *

Jack and Riley’s comms are gone the minute Mac gets inside the loading dock, and he tries not to think about how much that bothers him. _ If any of us get into trouble, we won’t know about it _ . He’s sure Jack is worried too.

_ Don’t think about that. Focus on the problem. Right now, you’re alone. Just like you used to be. You can do this. _ He glances around. There’s an old metal mop bucket on its side in a corner, and those wheels will be just the thing for what he has in mind.

He shakes out his hand, fingers aching from the punch that knocked out the guard at his door and got him a disguise as well. Granted, there’s a few dirt stains from where the guy fell on the floor, but Mac hopes no one will notice.

He ducks down behind a heap of crates and gets to work on his homemade version of a creeper to slide under the trucks on. It’ll be less noisy, and if he gets caught he can hopefully claim he was doing a legitimate repair. And hope the guy he talks to speaks English. It seems like a pretty even split of languages in here.

It’s really starting to feel like old times as he slides under the first truck on the section of pallet.  _ I could probably fix...and disable vehicles in my sleep, after all the time I spent working at Weathers’s. _ He finds the right bundle of wires tucked up in the undercarriage, and he’s moving on to the next vehicle before anyone even notices his presence at the first one. 

He’s not quiet so lucky on the second one. One of the creeper wheels chooses that moment to start wobbling and screeching, and Mac knows that’s going to draw attention. He sucks in a deep breath and lies perfectly still while three men walk past his hiding place. He doesn’t really want to bluff his way out of this situation, especially since he already disabled two of the trucks, including the one he’s under right now. 

Fortunately, no one looks under the truck, and Mac finally releases a shaky breath that starts to fog up the inside of his mask. That was close. He’ll need to be more careful next time. 

He makes his way through all but one vehicle. _ It won’t actually capture Khan and his team, but they won’t get far on foot either, and at least they won’t be able to move their merchandise.  _ He leans up against the side of the last vehicle and sighs. This one, closest to the door, is about to become their getaway truck.  _ How am I going to let Jack and Riley know which one to go to when they come back with Sergei? _

Suddenly, his comms crackle back to life. “Mac? Hey Mac, can you hear me?”

Jack’s voice is a welcome relief. “Yeah, Jack, I can hear you.” There’s a lot of interference, but he can at least tell what’s being said. 

“We got Sergei. Where you at with those trucks?”

“All of them are disabled except the lone green one closest to the cargo door. That’s gonna be our ride outta here.” 

“Okay. We’re coming to ya, man. Sergei’s a little lame at the moment, but he’s not a horse, so we’re all good. Right man?” Mac can’t exactly hear what the reply is.  _ Probably don’t want to. _ “Okay. Hey, man, you got to try to stop limping if you can, bro. You're gonna give us away.” There’s another mumbled reply, and then Jack speaks up again. “Don't scream, don't scream, Hopalong. All right, here we go, big man. Don't screw this up.” Mac watches three white-suited figures stepping out of a doorway. One of them, alone, is walking at a normal pace, making a beeline for him.  _ Riley. _ He recognizes her gait. The other two are stumbling a little, one leaning heavily on the other.  _ Jack and Sergei. _

Riley’s almost made it to Mac when Jack starts speaking up through the comms again. “I got you. I got you, come on. Just lean on me, lean on me.” The limping figure is clearly starting to struggle. “Few more steps and we're home free. Truck's right here. Yeah, almost. Here we go, baby.” And then there’s a violent sneeze that Mac can hear without the comms.  _ Oh no. _

“Really?” Jack groans. “Oh, man.” He slowly raises his hands as a group of guards surround him and Sergei, training their guns on them menacingly. 

Riley ducks behind the truck next to Mac, and he jumps before she pulls off her mask and reveals that it’s her. “Mac, we got a big problem.”

“I see it.” He starts to scramble into the truck while Riley jumps in the driver’s side. He pulls off his own mask and tosses it to the ground, they’ve already blown the element of surprise so they won’t need the disguises anymore, and he needs to be able to see better. “Okay, first things first. We got to get this thing started. So, I will…” Riley reaches up, yanks on the visor, and keys jingle as they tumble into her hand. She turns to Mac with a grin. “...wait for you to find the keys. Okay. Go ahead, crank it. Riley does, and the engine turns over with a roar.

“I hope these guys aren't dumb enough to shoot at barrels of radioactive waste,” Riley says, and then slams the truck into reverse. Straight toward Jack and Sergei.

“Jack, get down!” Mac shouts. 

“You can scream now, big man,” he hears Jack say, and then there’s a rumbling thud. He hopes neither of them were hit by the vehicle. 

“Are you okay?” he shouts. 

“We’re fine. Just great,” Jack groans. “Come on, Sergei, let’s get outta here.” There’s thudding at the back of the truck, but fortunately no gunshots. “Get in there, get in there.” Someone pounds on the bed of the truck three times, and then Jack shouts.  “Go, go, Riley.”

“All right.” She guns the engine, this time in forward. 

“Go! Go! Go!” And then they’re outside, rain pouring down on the windshield and lightning splitting the sky. Mac glances over his shoulder into the back to see Jack and Sergei leaning against the sides of the truck, and he lets out the shaky breath he was holding. They’re okay. And they’re on their way home now. 

* * *

LEAVING CHERNOBYL

THEY DON’T GIVE OUT SOUVENIR T-SHIRTS HERE

Jack rolls up Sergei’s pantleg to take another look at the wound. The patch job Khan’s men did on him is holding, for now. “Hang in there, Sergei. Hang in there. We're gonna get you some help, I promise you.” The man nods.

For now, Jack’s just putting on pressure with a strip torn off his shirt. This must be a record, it’s possibly the first time someone else has needed Jack’s emergency medical assistance and Mac has walked away unharmed. 

_ Don’t jinx it you moron. _ For all they know, Mac could go home and then find out he’s got radiation poisoning from being around all that crap in the loading dock. Jack doesn’t even want to think about that, or cancer, or any of the other horrible things that could happen because of exposure to those toxins. 

“Say good-bye to Chernobyl, boys,” Riley says. They must be getting close to the gates. 

“Oh, and say hello to the Phoenix. That's probably the tac team Matty sent for us right there.” Jack grins. He leans forward and squeezes Mac’s shoulder, feeling the tension still thrumming through him. “We're gonna be fine.” He pities the kid the decon they still have to do before they can leave, Mac always hates that part. 

“That doesn't look like the Phoenix tac team, Jack,” Riley says suddenly.

“Huh?”

“Nope, that's the Ukrainian mob.” She slams on the brakes and the truck screeches to a halt. “What now?” She asks, turning to Jack.

Jack glances forward at the men approaching the truck, holding out clicking Geiger counters. And then Mac says something that makes Jack think maybe the radiation fried the kid’s brain after all. “We're gonna give 'em Sergei.”

There’s a chorus of “What?” from the rest of the vehicle, Jack included.

“Those exposure badges on the hazmat suits, this one right here, take it off, hand it to Jack.” He pulls his own off and sets it on the barrels.

“What am I supposed to do with these?” Jack asks. Mac just shoves Riley’s badge into his hands. 

“Wipe them on the barrels in back. Make sure they turn black.” 

Jack thinks he’s caught onto the plan. “You’re going to make them think he’s contaminated.” Mac nods. He starts pulling wires out from the dash and attaching them to some kind of metal plate.  _ I have no idea what he’s doing, but he’s got that look in his eyes that says he has a plan _ . 

“All right, ready.” Jack hands the black badges back. 

“Mac, they're getting closer.” Riley says. 

“Okay, almost done…” Jack can hear something noisy outside the car; it sounds like the geiger counters getting louder.  _ Nice, kiddo, whatever you did really worked well.  _

He can hear voices too. “Step out of the truck. Slowly.” He clips the badge onto his hazmat suit and steps out, raising his hands. Behind him, he hears Sergei stepping out too, and Mac and Riley are in front of him.  _ Man, this better work. Or we’re all gonna die.  _

* * *

CHERNOBYL

THEY ALMOST MADE IT OUT

“Sergei it's good to see you,” Dmitry says. “Soon we will be alone, and I'm looking forward to that time very much.” Mac flinches. He’s heard the same kind of thing far too often from people who have wanted something different from what Dmitry wants. “I have many questions for you.”

Mac steps forward, shivering as rain makes it way down the collar of his suit and jacket. “He's all yours if you want him. I wouldn't take him, though, if I were you.” He holds out the front of his hazmat suit. “Black badges.”  _ This plan isn’t quite as good as it felt a minute again. Maybe a little short-sighted, if they decide to shoot us since we’re claiming we’re all gonna die anyway. _ But it’s too late to go back now. 

“Yeah, you know what these mean.” Jack says. 

Mac nods. “He's been exposed to a lethal dose of radiation. We all have. Frankly, I'm surprised we're not all glowing right now.” He looks to his side at Riley, she shrugs. “Look, you can shoot us if you want. It's a waste of bullets, honestly, 'cause we're all dead anyway. And if any of you get near any of us, you're all dead, too.”  _ Please, just turn around and let us go.  _ But it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.

“We’d rather not take chances.” Dmitry levels his gun. 

And then there’s a harsh metallic snap and Dmitry screams.  _ Another bear trap. _ When he stepped forward to shoot, he put his foot directly in it. 

Jack’s already pulling his handgun out, training it on Dmitry and glaring at the other goons. “Drop 'em! I said drop 'em! Or you can give Dmitry your  _ do svidaniyas _ right here, right now.”

“Jack, that's Russian,” Riley says, grinning. She’s starting to pull zipties out of her backpack as the mob men lay down their guns. 

“Yeah, whatever. I think they get it.” Jack helps Riley finish tying up the rest of the men. “Hey, think we should have made these into bows? Or scrounged up a little gift wrap for the occasion? Mac, think you could find us something since we’re leaving that tac team such a nice little present?”

Mac chuckles. Then Dmitry groans again, and Mac glances over at him. “We can’t just leave him in this thing,” Mac says. “It’s going to dig in deeper and cause an infec-” He can’t help the scream that rips out of his throat. The sudden pain is overwhelming. He can feel himself crumpling to the muddy ground, and he can hear Jack and Riley shouting.  _ There was a second trap. _

His leg is in agony. Burning, throbbing, a screaming bone deep pain shooting up to his hip and back down again.  _ This is why those animals are willing to chew off their own legs. It would hurt less than this.  _

“Please, get it off me,” he pants, gasping for air around the sick feeling in his stomach and throat. It just hurts so badly. “Please, Jack, please! Please.” It’s crushing his leg. This is horrible. He wants to scream but he feels like the scream is just trapped in his throat, like he’s in too much pain to make any sound at all. 

“Mac, Mac, just breathe. Okay? Breathe for me.” It’s Riley, not Jack. Jack is bent over his leg and Mac can hear the man gasping, panting almost as badly as he is himself. 

“Ri, I need your help back here.” Jack is doing something with the trap. “It’s gonna need both of us to do this, it’s a lot bigger than the coyote traps back home.” Mac cringes at the thought of trapping any animal in something like this, but he knows ranch life is hard.  _ It’s the coyotes or the calves, sometimes. _ Jack’s used that analogy before when they’re forced to kill on the job. It doesn’t make things easier, but it does remind Mac that they do what they do to protect the innocent.  _ But it sucks to be the coyote, just the same. _

He can’t hold back a gasping sob of pain when the trap starts to pull free of his leg.  It hurts  _ more _ and he didn’t even think that was possible. “You’re gonna have to pull your leg out, kiddo, we can’t hold it open and get you,” Jack says gently, even as he’s gritting his teeth and straining to hold open the trap. It’s the spooked horse voice again, and Mac has to admit it works. He pulls his leg toward him with both hands, crying out softly at the agony, and then hears the trap slam shut. He lays stiffy, dragging in shallow, trembling breaths while he waits for the wave of pain to pass. 

“You’re lucky, kiddo. This one was pretty dilapidated. Springs weren't as strong as if it was a new one.”

He doesn’t feel lucky. He feels miserable. And stupid.  _ Stepped in the same kinda trap as our bad guy. _

Blood is already soaked through the leg of the white hazmat suit he was wearing.  _ I already wasn’t looking forward to doing decontamination after this op.  _ Now it’s going to be even worse; he won’t even be able to stand to clean himself up. 

Jack scoops him up, and Mac turns his head so his face is resting against Jack’s chest. He doesn’t want to look at the others right now. “Hey, kiddo, I’m so so sorry,” Jack says gently. 

“Wasn’t your fault.” Mac chokes out. He thought the pain would get better when they got him out. It hasn’t.

“I know, bud, but I know it hurts and I’m sorry. You don’t deserve that.” Jack says softly. Mac can only vaguely hear the man muttering under his breath. “Damn it, kid, you didn’t deserve any of this. Any of it.” 

Jack sits down with him in the back of the truck while Riley puts them back in gear. He tries not to look at Sergei, but when he feels a third hand on his shoulder, he glances at the man. 

“I am sorry for putting you in this trouble,” Sergei says. “You were only helping me, and now you are hurt.”

Mac manages a shaky half-smile. “I do that a lot. Not your fault either.”  _ Wow, this really does feel like the vigilante days.  _ Except back then there was no team to help save him, no Jack to hold him while he rode out the pain. He’d have been sitting alone in the back of someone’s vehicle, trying to clean out a wound by the light of a phone flashlight and praying it wasn’t going to give him a noticeable limp or pain the next day.  _ It’s a wonder I didn’t die of an infection.  _ Thanks to Carlos and his generosity, more than anything else, really. 

He squeezes Jack’s hand just a little tighter even after the man’s done wrapping makeshift bandages around his wound. Jack holds on, like he already knows Mac is seeking the comfort.  _ He probably does. _

* * *

PHOENIX MEDICAL

Matty wasn’t even surprised when the report from the exfil team came in. Mac’s gone and gotten himself injured again.  _ He’s the most accident prone agent I’ve ever put in the field. _ If she believed in that kind of thing, Matty would say he’s cursed.

Even though the report is Denikov’s usual succinct account, Matty’s mind can fill in the details. Mac clinging like a burr to Jack as he’s carried out of the back of the truck. Jack refusing to let anyone else help the wounded, disoriented agent with the mandatory decontamination, apparently literally shoving away one of the exfil team who tried to help remove Mac’s contaminated clothes. She’s seen firsthand how protective Jack is of the boy he considers a son, and that defensive streak is always twice as dangerous when Mac is injured. 

Riley’s the only one who’s filled out an after action report yet, on the flight home, and her emotions are bleeding through. Matty can only imagine what Jack’s will be like.  _ He’ll find some way to blame himself. He and MacGyver are both very, very good at that. _ One of the few things similar about them. 

Matty steps into Mac’s room just as a doctor is leaving. She flags the woman down. “How is he?”

“No sign of radiation poisoning, but we’re going to keep monitoring all three of them just in case,” the woman says. “Agent MacGyver has a hairline fracture of the tibia and several puncture wounds in his leg. Thankfully, since he’s up to date on both broad spectrum and regional vaccines, we don’t anticipate any further issues. He will need to wear a protective boot for the next few weeks to allow the bone time to heal.”

“Thank you.” Matty pushes aside the curtain and steps into Mac’s room. Jack, Riley, and Bozer are already there and in the middle of a conversation.

“Man, the superpower you really need is super-fast healing,” Jack chuckles. “Like the Wolverine.” 

“Okay, now I’m really mad I missed this. Damn, what a great setting for a blended genre. Superhero horror. Has that been done?” Bozer asks.

“What’s all this about superpowers?” Matty asks.

“Ah! Matty, you gotta stop sneaking up on a guy like that!” Jack says. “Well, I know your power would be invisibility for sure.” 

“Very funny.” She walks up to the side of the bed. “Hey Mac.”

“Hey Matty.” She can tell he’s uncomfortable around her right now, after their...fight, for lack of a better word. His hands are clenched, white knuckled, in the sheets, and she’s sure all of the paleness can’t just be from pain, since she can see the IV drip and read its contents.  _ He must have been hurting to agree to have them give him anything.  _ She’s never personally encountered a bear trap, but the pain must have been excruciating. 

“I thought you’d like to know, the Phoenix tac teams rounded up both Khan and Dmitry, and their flunkies. Both of them are going away for a very long time.”

Mac still won’t look her in the eyes. “That’s good news.” 

“How’s the leg?”

“Still attached.” He gives Jack a grin,  _ of course he learned that from him. _ “I’m okay. As long as I don’t move it.” He shrugs slightly. “Be back to work in no time.”  _ Please don’t. _

“Hey Jack, look!” Riley hands him her tablet. “You made a new friend.” She’s grinning.

It’s a video stream accompanied by Russian pop music, on the same channel Matty had scanned for the stalker video of Khan’s compound. On screen, a kid is doing a series of complicated backflips on the edge of a roof. He looks inches from crashing to the ground, but he seems absolutely unconcerned.

Matty glances from Jack to Riley, unsure what this is all about.  _ What exactly were they doing over there?  _

The boy finishes his gymnastic routine and starts talking to the camera in rapid Ukrainian. It’s no different from any of the other videos Matty saw from this group. But then he switches to English at the end, and suddenly she realizes why this was important. 

“And I would like to thank my American friend for this lucky ring. Beowulf will always be very special to me.” 

“Well, look at that.” Jack grins. 

“Did you adopt another stray, Dalton?” Matty asks, shaking her head. “I should have known.” Jack has an unlikely way of connecting with people.  _ He acts like a tough, scary badass, but in reality he’s a soft-hearted guy. _

“I’d like to talk to Mac for a minute,” she says. “Alone.” The others nod, and she watches Mac’s face go a shade paler.  _ He thinks he’s in trouble, and he’s scared. _ She’s pretty sure the only reason he’s letting it show is the painkillers coursing through his bloodstream. 

She can’t help but remember her first interview with him, when she first took over as interim director. So many things have changed, but the one that hasn’t is Mac’s sense of self-worth. Even after the countless lives he’s saved, even after every time his team has proved they value him, he seems determined not to believe he’s important to anyone. Sure that the first mistake or even minor disagreement will drive everyone away. 

And that’s what she’s here to try and chip away at, again.  _ I don’t care how long it takes. We’re going to show him, one day at a time, how much he’s worth. _

She sits down in the chair next to the bed, taking Mac’s hand in her own and waiting until he looks her in the eyes. "Going after Sergei  _ and _ the waste, that was the right move, Mac. I'm sorry I fought you on it. Sometimes I forget I hired you because you think outside the box, and not just with creative solutions to problems. With whole situations. You have a unique perspective and I never meant to minimize that." 

Mac looks up at her with those sad puppy eyes that are unfairly hard to ever be angry with. “And I’m sorry I snapped at you.” 

Matty sighs. “You have a lot on your mind right now, Mac. More than any one person should have to deal with.” 

“Jack told you about James.” Mac glances at her. “Don’t worry. I’m not going after him.”

_ I was trained to see lies. And you’re lying to me, MacGyver. Right now. _ He doesn’t want them to know that he’s going to do exactly what James asked for.  _ He’s going to go after him alone.  _

* * *

PHOENIX WAR ROOM

SAM IS GLAD TO BE BACK

When Sam steps into the War Room, there’s only one person inside. Patty Thornton turns around from the screen, and Sam watches as she taps the glass walls, turning them opaque and soundproof. It feels a lot like last year.  _ I didn’t think we had any more secrets, with Tennant gone and Scorpion dismantled. _

“I was told this was urgent?” Sam says, crossing her arms and wincing when the action pulls on her sore back and shoulder muscles. 

“It is.” Thornton steps aside and Sam can now clearly see the screen. Jonah Walsh’s dossier is open on it, as well as the information for the facility he’s currently being held at.  _ This should be interesting. _ “I need you to interview Walsh again. Extract any intelligence that he might have on James MacGyver. By whatever means necessary.” Her face is tight. 

_ Something has her worried. For the safety of her agents, most likely.  _ Sam hasn’t seen Mac since the wedding, and she wonders if he knows more.  _ I won’t get a thing out of Patty, we’re cut from the same cloth. But Mac I can read. _

“I was under the impression reserve tac team agents were normally kept out of the field until there was a severe situation.” 

“I think your position here has always been a bit more fluid than that, Agent Cage.” Thornton smiles. “I seem to remember an interrogator who spent several weeks globetrotting in search of intel on Scorpion.” 

Cage smiles. She’s always had a good relationship with the woman. Thornton is like her. Secretive and closed off, likes to play mind games, and is willing to do whatever it takes to protect the people she cares about.  _ We’re the dangerous ones. Even Jack has more morals than us.  _

“I think it’s only fair to warn you that doing this  _ will _ put you in the crosshairs of a very dangerous killer.” Patty’s voice is deadly serious.

“I’ve already survived the world’s most dangerous assassin. I can handle it.” She’d prefer not to get shot again, but the fact remains that whatever this is about, Mac is at the center of it. Her best guess is that James has escalated his game in some way. Mac may have followed up on the key clue, or maybe he decided to stop playing James’s game. Either way, something must have happened to tip the delicate balance they’ve been living with toward danger. 

“I’ll call ahead to let them know I’m coming, and that I’m going to need a...discreet setting.” Sam doesn’t usually need to get physical. But she doesn’t want to discount what it might take to get answers. And she knows that’s why Patty is asking for this. 

She picks up the phone and dials the number, but when she asks if Walsh is available for an interview, the answer isn’t one she expects. 

“Thank you. I understand.” Cage hangs up the phone and turns to face Thornton. “Jonah Walsh was found dead in his cell. It looks like I won’t be flying out to interrogate him after all.”

_ James is making sure Mac plays by his rules. Keeping us from having a finger in the pie. _

Patty frowns.  _ Either James is a good guesser, or he knows we were coming.  _ Sam doesn’t like the possibility of another mole. And aside from her and Thornton, no one else should have known that they were going after Walsh.  _ If Patty was behind this, she wouldn't let someone like me get this close. She’s too smart for that.  _ Which means if there is a mole, it could be anyone. 

“It seems your objective has changed,” Thornton says. Sam can see the traces of worry in her eyes. “Find out how James MacGyver knew we were coming for Walsh.”

“I will.” Sam turns toward the door.  _ Anyone in this building could be the mole. And I’m going to have to find out who. _ There are only six people she can trust. And only one who can ever know what she’s doing. 


	19. Riley+Airplane

###  218-Riley+Airplane

MAC’S HOUSE

BEST PLACE FOR A BONFIRE

“So, kiddo, I know you got that hangup about birthdays, but shouldn’t we at least celebrate ol’ Mickey joining the family?” Jack asks, reaching over to ruffle the dog’s fur. 

“You really will use any excuse to have a party, won’t you?” Mac asks. 

“Hey, now you’re insulting Mickey!” Jack takes the dog’s head and turns him toward Mac. “He’s insinuating that you are but a pawn in my nefarious plots. You’re not a pawn, are you buddy?” Mickey barks, short and sharp. “Look at this face. He wants a party. See? How can you resist those eyes?”

Mac sighs. “Okay, fine. You’re not going to give up until you get to have one. So we’ll have one.” He shakes his head, taking another drink and staring into the fire. 

“I’m going stir crazy working a desk job again. I’m more than willing to help plan something,” Sam says. She grins at Riley. “I think I might have a future in event planning if I ever make it to retirement. Linsey says she’s already had five people ask her who helped her with her wedding, and I mean, she did a lot of it herself, but I did have a hand in it.” 

“Oh, you’ll definitely make it to retirement, you’re the hardest person to kill I’ve ever met.” Riley chuckles. “Jack...I’m not so sure.” 

“Oh come on, Riley! We’ve already discussed this. I am going to retire and go back to Texas and take over the ranch.” Jack shoves her shoulder. “I’m gonna outlive all of you.” He turns to Mac. “Because I got this guy watching my six and I know he’s not gonna let anything happen to me. Heck, when I’m a hundred and fifty and my heart’s being powered by a potato clock and an eggbeater, I’ll still be going strong.”

He counts it a win that he gets a real smile out of the kid. Bozer told him Mac’s been spending a lot of time alone in his room. Usually with only Mickey for company. And the dog seems more worried about Mac than normal, winding himself around the kid’s good leg and whining whenever Mac is quiet for too long.  _ You can hide your problems from the rest of us, but a dog always knows.  _ And there are some suspiciously crusted spots in the dog’s fur on his shoulders and back where he can’t reach to lick. It looks like Mac’s been holding onto him and crying. 

_ What’s eating you, kiddo? _ Jack’s pretty sure he knows without even needing to ask. The whole James disaster just won’t go away. 

_ He needs something to get his mind off that man’s threats.  _ Jack knows the kid is facing a near impossible choice. If he continues to pursue James, his team comes under fire. And if he doesn’t, he’ll feel responsible if the man strikes again. Jack tries not to think abut the third option.  _ He goes it alone. Just like he did with the trucks back in Chernobyl. _ Mac had insisted he works with a team now and he was utilizing that, but the fact remains that Jack saw a lot of the lone wolf vigilante the kid had been on that last op.  _ Sure, some of that came out cause we needed his skill set. _ But he’s afraid Mac’s uncharacteristically isolated, combative behavior and that argument with Matty was about a lot more than just doing some Spider-man climbing and slipping back into his into his “Phoenix” alter ego. He’s probably considering whether he’s going to strike out on his own and chase James down the way the man wants. 

_ Please, kiddo, don’t be that person anymore _ . It hurts Jack enough every time he remembers that Mac spent years risking his life without anyone to protect him. He doesn’t want it to happen again.

* * *

THE WAR ROOM

MAC’S NOT TECHNICALLY SUPPOSED TO BE HERE

Mac pushes the door open and closes it again, then flinches as his boot clicks against the floor noisily. Jack and Riley turn around, and Matty glares at him. “Nice of you to join us, Blondie.”

“I'm a fraction of a second late.” He came from PT as soon as he got the text when he took his phone out of his locker.  _ It went longer than normal today, and so did my shower.  _ But the hot water only helped the aches and pains so much.

“Don’t make it a habit.” Matty’s been less sharp and strict with him lately, ever since their disagreement at Chernobyl. Mac isn’t quite sure what’s going on. “Now, let's get this campfire going. We just got a lead on Emil Beck.” She pulls up an image of an unassuming looking man on the screen.

“Wait,  _ the _ Emil Beck?” Riley asks.

“Yes.”

Mac frowns. “Um, obviously, not all of us are caught up. Who is  _ the _ Emil Beck?”

“Don't worry, Matty. I'll take it from here.” Jack turns to Mac. “Emil Beck is a government tech nerd turned traitor that she and Ri and I have been chasing ever since he stole, get this, 300 gigabytes of classified intel and then fled the U.S.”

“300 gigs?” Mac asks. 

“He could do a lot of damage with that kind of intel,” Riley says. “That's why we spent so many years trying to catch this guy.”

Matty nods. “Beck is not a trained spy. But with an IQ of 162, he's a quick study. He's managed to elude capture for years, staying one step ahead of law enforcement...until last night.” Matty looks directly at Mac.  _ So this is why they asked for me even when I’m technically on injury leave.  _ They’re chasing someone like him. 

“Beck was pulled over in Arkansas for a broken taillight. The officer who made the stop suspected that his ID was fake, but when he tried to bring Beck in…” Matty stops, then turns on the video, her face impassive but also sad. 

The dashcam footage shows the officer walking up to the car window and reaching for the ID. A few moments later, he’s shaking his head and starting to step back. And then Mac sees his hand go to his sidearm. “Drop your weapon!” he shouts, and there’s the smallest moment of silence before everything goes to hell. 

There’s no way to see what’s happening in the car, but the next second there’s an exchange of gunfire. Mac shudders as he watches the officer fall backward, something dark pooling out around him. 

Matty’s voice is soft and pained. “Officer Thomas Porter was killed. Beck managed to flee the scene, but we believe that he was wounded in the shoot-out.” 

Mac frowns, feeling his own leg aching, as well as the phantom pains in several of his old scars. “Which might be the break we need.Getting wounded can make you…” He stops. “Might make him sloppy.” He doesn’t look to see who’s staring at him in sympathy. He doesn’t want that. 

Matty isn’t, and he’s grateful for that. “One can only hope. State police have issued a reward for his arrest, but all they have is his fake ID. They have no idea who they're actually dealing with.”

Jack takes a deep breath. “We got to stop this guy before he gets more cops killed.”

Riley speaks up. “And I think I know where to look. I've had Friar scanning every image posted online within 500 miles of that shoot-out. This was what I found.”

A picture of a child grinning and holding an ice cream cone pops up on the screen. 

Jack frowns. “Uh, yeah, right. Unless he's got a severe case of the Benjamin Buttons, - I don't think…”

“Just hold on, Jack. Just wait for it.” Riley selects an area in the background of the photo and enlarges it, and there’s Beck, his arm in a sling, in the background. 

“Where was this picture taken?” Matty asks. 

“Atlanta, two hours ago.”

“Go.” Matty says. “You need to get on the ground there as fast as possible before he has the chance to go underground again.” Mac nods, following Jack and Riley, feeling his boot clumping awkwardly. He wants to get rid of it, but he has the feeling Jack will chew him out for it. 

Although Jack would chew him out a lot more if he knew what Mac was doing this morning before PT. He’s been combing through every piece of information, every clue, James has left for him. He checked the jewelry box for secret compartments, the carry out menu for any more hidden code, the letter James left for any kind of hidden message. Nothing. If James left him that clue he promised, Mac isn’t smart enough to find it. 

“Hey kiddo, you okay to go?” Jack asks. 

Mac forces a smile and nods. Jack probably thinks it’s his leg that’s bothering him. But he can manage on that. _It’s killing me not to tell you the truth. Shutting you out like this feels wrong._ Jack is supposed to be the person he can go to with any of his problems. But not if it’s going to get him killed. “Yeah, I’m good.” 

* * *

Jack feels his comms crackle to life and glances at Riley across the jet. Matty’s voice is crisp in his ear, and aside from Mac sitting next to him making a tiny sculpture of a running man out of a paperclip, this feels just like old times. “Okay, Atlanta PD just put out a BOLO with Beck's current photo and real name, so we'll see. Same with the state cops and the sheriffs, which means that every local lawman will be looking out for him.”

“That’s good,” Mac says. “Right?”

“Yeah, you know, it probably still won't be enough. This guy's been giving me and Matty and Riley the slip for years.” Riley nods. This was one of their first cases as a team. Riley was in charge of trying to track the man’s digital footprint.  _ He outsmarted her, and that was a slap in the face for her at that point in her career. Up until then, she’d been practically unbeatable. _ She still has a bone to pick with Beck when they catch up to him.  _ She wants this bad. _

“Take a look at the photo again. See if there's anything in there that might give us a clue on where he is.” Matty says. 

Mac acts like he’s trying to disappear from all this. He’s fiddling with the velcro on his ankle boot straps again.  _ He shouldn’t be here. But this is the kind of case that fits his expertise. _ For all the trained operatives Jack’s met, Mac is the best he knows at flying under the radar.  _ He’s a lot like Beck, in that way. No training, but incredibly smart and adaptable. _ Which means they need someone who thinks the same way to get a step ahead.

“What about his injury? He's bandaged. He must've patched himself up somewhere.” Riley glances at Jack. 

“Yeah, but you can't exactly walk into an ER with a gunshot wound and keep a low profile because they call those in.” Jack can’t help but feel the ache in his chest grow.  _ Wonder how many times the kid patched himself up because he knew that. _ Mac managed to do almost what Beck has.  _ Except that instead of selling information and committing treason, he was trying to save people.  _ “Check for break-ins at local veterinarian hospitals. I've done a couple self-surgeries in the back of a vet's office.” He shrugs. “Unless he’s got someone in his pocket doing medical work for him.” 

“I had that same thought about vet clinics, but I checked the police reports and got nothing,” Riley says. “So now I'm checking for any robberies at clinics and pharmacies.” Her computer chimes. “I think I just got something. Break-in at a drugstore on Peachtree.” She pulls up the police report, and Mac scans it quickly. Jack watches the kid’s fingers tapping nervously on the edge of the desk Riley’s working at.  

“Oh, yeah. The list of stolen items is exactly what you would need to self-treat a gunshot wound. This has got to be Beck.”

Riley pulls up a still from a security feed. “Except it isn't. Cops are looking for an Owen Palmer. He's dumb enough to let his face get caught on the security camera, but smart enough cops haven't got him yet.”

“Yeah, but what are the odds that this guy would randomly steal everything that Beck needs to treat himself hours after Beck gets shot?” Jack says.

“He’s probably Beck’s middleman. A supplier. Sort of what Carlos was to me, but probably with less hands on medical knowledge, given his record,” Mac says. “If Beck's hiring those criminals to do his dirty work, I see why it's been so hard to catch him.”

“Good news is, if we can find this guy, he may be able to tell us where Beck is hiding.” Riley’s typing frantically. Jack wants to tell her to calm down, slow down before she makes a mistake, but he knows better than to do that to her right now.

“Do we know where Palmer is now?” He asks. 

“His phone's in a house in Grant Park.”

“Excellent. Let's go pay him a little visit.” Jack watches as Mac sits down, then leans back over beside Riley. “Hey, listen, kiddo, I know this one is personal…”

“I got this, Jack.” Riley says firmly. “I can be objective.”

“I’m not doubting that. But I just want your word that if something goes sideways, you’re gonna listen to me and not do something stupid, okay?” Riley swallows and nods. “Because that man is not getting the chance to hurt you again.”

He can’t forget Belarus. The near miss when Riley was almost gunned down by a passing car.  _ She was the closest to catching him that ever happened. He knew she was a threat. _ And he’s sure Beck won’t hesitate to eliminate her from the equation if he catches sight of her again. 

* * *

BECK’S HOUSE

HOPEFULLY NO ONE SEES THEM BREAKING IN

Jack kicks down the door to the house so forcefully Riley hears the wood around the hinges crack. 

Mac sighs. “I was just about to use my card.” He holds up the credit card he just took out of his wallet.

“It's a lot faster to kick it in.” Jack glances around the room. It looks empty, but Riley draws her sidearm anyway.  _ Just in case Beck’s holed up here too. _ She doesn’t want to be caught off guard again. 

Mac shakes his head. “Look, I don't disagree with you, but Palmer's definitely gonna know we were here now.”

“Yeah, so what?”

Riley cuts off the argument before it can escalate; Jack is in a mood about Beck, and he’s probably itching to thrash the man. Without Beck to take out his old anger on, it’s going to find an outlet somewhere. She’d rather not see the victim be Mac, however accidental it might be. “Got a cell phone charging over here. Which means he's gonna be back soon.”

Jack glances back out the shattered door. “Well, it's a good day for a stakeout. Whose turn is it to get snacks?” Mac holds up his credit card with a wry smile. Jack and Riley park the car around the corner while Mac walks down to a little party store at the end of the street.

Riley can feel Jack’s eyes on her in the rearview mirror.  _ I’m not a naive junior agent anymore.  _ She isn’t going to give Beck the chance to hurt her again. “Jack. Please. Stop doing that, you’re making me nervous.”

“Stop what?”

“Hovering. Helicopter parenting me.”

“Ask Mac. I am incapable of not helicopter parenting my kids. It’s my skill set.” Jack shrugs, smiling a little. “I’m always gonna worry about you two.” He puts the car in park, and then leans over to look her in the eyes. “I thought I was gonna watch you die right in front of me on that street.” It’s not something either of them talk about much. Riley’s actively tried to forget about it. It’s one of the most truly terrifying moments of her espionage career.  _ Even when I’ve been captured and tortured, I knew they wanted me alive for information. But at that moment, I knew that what Beck wanted was to kill me. _ It was cold and calculated, not the kind of vague fear of being in the middle of a firefight where adrenaline is running high and the shooter is just trying to stay alive as much as she is. 

It was only thanks to a passing car and a fortunately located trash can that Riley walked away from that hit. She tries not to think about it now.  _ I just want to get Beck and put him somewhere he can’t hurt anyone anymore. _ She was lucky. The Arkansas cop wasn’t. 

Mac climbs in with a couple bags of chips, some boxes of candy, and bottles of water. Riley accepts a bag of lime and salt tortilla chips and opens them. 

Everyone is fairly quiet. Mac is staring out the window, it looks like he’s trying to avoid looking at Jack. Riley checks Friar periodically to see if Palmer or Beck turn up in any more photos. Jack is eating his pork rinds crunchily, but that’s the most sound in the car until Riley’s phone pings. 

“That’s the seventh text in an hour. Who’s blowing up your phone?” Mac asks.

“Is it that guy from the coffeeshop speed-dating thing your mom made you do?” Jack asks. “Diego or whatever?”

“Demitrius.” Riley corrects him. “And yeah. We hit it off, he’s a programmer for a video game startup that’s taking off, and we both have the same taste in music. He’s going to take me to a concert next Wednesday.”

“Can I tag along?” Jack asks. 

“Do you like hip-hop?” Riley says, smirking.

“What I like is knowing that the guy who wants to date you is a stand-up dude, and not some creep.”  _ He’s still jumpy after Nick. _ Although Riley can’t blame him.  _ When my last boyfriend got me shot, twice no less, he does have a point. _ Then again, Demitrius is no undercover government operative. 

“Jack, I think I can handle myself if he turns out to be a weirdo.” Riley shakes her head. “I don’t need you to chaperone.”  _ Him being overprotective in the field is one thing. Being overprotective in my personal life is not. _ But she has to admit, she sort of likes it when Jack goes dad mode. She hasn’t even told Elwood about this yet.  _ I mean, I probably wouldn’t have told Jack if Diane didn’t tell him first, but… _ Maybe she  _ should _ ask him to come along. They could make it a double date. 

“So how is that working out with the whole ‘can’t talk about your job because he’s a civilian’ thing?” Mac asks. 

“Honestly, I don’t know yet.” Riley says. “It’s only gonna be our second date. I don’t even know if I’m serious about him. It’s just...nice to do something where for once I don’t have to feel like I have to live up to my reputation. I can just be Riley Davis, think tank employee.” 

“And what happens when he starts asking tough questions?” Jack asks. “When you fall off the face of the earth and don’t answer his texts and he has to wonder if you’re cheating on him?”

“I can’t date an agent again.” Riley sighs.  _ Nick taught me a valuable lesson. Spies make a career out of lying. And sometimes they don’t know where the lies need to stop. _

“Well, if you ever need advice on keeping your secret spy life separate from your love life...do not come to me,” Jack chuckles. “I failed at that.” 

“Yeah, but you still got the girl,” Mac says. 

“That’s true.” Jack’s smile softens.  _ It’s good to see them together. _ Riley’s glad her mom gave Jack another chance.  

 Mac sits up straight, pointing out the window.“Guys, guys, Palmer, Palmer.”

Jack runs up to the man on one side, while Mac and Riley take the other. Palmer’s noticed the broken door, and he’s just turning around when he catches sight of Jack. “Owen. Hey, man, what you running for? We got you, just stop already.” Palmer still tries to run and almost slams directly into Riley. 

“End of the road, Palmer.” She pulls her gun on him as well. 

There’s a sudden rumble from behind her, and a whole lot of shouting. She turns to see a familiar red pickup screeching to a stop in the middle of the road, and four people climbing out, all armed, all looking more than a little pissed off. 

The woman in the middle, her shotgun trained on Palmer, is the first to speak. “Angus MacGyver. As I live and breathe.” She smiles just a little, but it’s a dangerous sort of smile. It reminds Riley of the way Patty can look sometimes. “How you doing?” 

“Mama Colton.” Mac glances from her to Palmer. “What are you guys doing here?”

“Chasing a felon who gunned down a police officer in Arkansas. We have reason to believe that Mr. Palmer here can lead us to him.” Riley knows the woman’s stare and the hardness in her voice mean she’s not about to roll over and let them walk away with Palmer. Mama Colton is every bit as intimidating as Matty. 

“Uh, dibs.” Jack says quickly.

“Dibs? What, are you ten?” Billy asks. 

“Nope. Ten's being generous.” Riley shrugs when Jack glares at her.  _ What? I’m trying to defuse the tension here and keep you all from shooting each other.  _ She’s holstered her own gun, but Jack shows no signs of doing the same. To be fair, neither do the Coltons. 

Palmer starts to step to the side. “You know, it seems like you guys have a lot to work out here, so why don't I just-”

Jack turns around and snaps at the man. “Shut up, Owen! You're not going anywhere. Butt out of it.” Riley watches Mac pull the man’s arms behind his back and start securing them with zipties. 

“Look, look, look,” Jessie says as Mac starts pulling Palmer aside. “Not that we're not happy to see you guys, but what's your business with this man?” 

“Our business is need to know, but trust me when I tell you that you're in way over your head with this one. The guy you're chasing is seriously dangerous. Please let us take it from here.” Riley meets Mama Colton’s eyes. 

“And "please" is being courteous, Mama,” Jack says. “We like you. But y'all are bail bonds. We're federal agents. And you remember what happened the last time you guys kept on messing with one of our marks. Y’all almost got killed, or did you conveniently forget that little detail?” Billy snorts, but it looks like Mama’s seriously thinking about that little incident. _ If it hadn’t been for Mac, they’d have been gunned down by the mob and there’d be nothing left of Colton Bail Bonds but a smoking hole in the ground. _ “I'm pulling rank. He's coming with us. Have a nice day.” 

“I don't think so.” Jessie cocks her pistol.

Riley flinches, but Mama puts a hand over Jessie’s, forcing her gun downward. “It's all right, baby. Mama knows when a dog won't hunt. Clearly, this case is in very capable hands. So we're just gonna let our government friends take it from here.” 

“Mm-hmm. Good luck with that.” Billy mumbles. Riley raises an eyebrow at him. 

“Come on.” Mama climbs back in the truck, and the rest of the family follows. 

“Get your ass over here, Owen. What's the matter with you?” Jack asks, shoving the man ahead of him back toward the house. 

Riley watches as the Coltons’ truck pulls away, Frank glaring balefully at them from the back. “You believe her?” Mac asks as soon as the truck is out of earshot. 

Jack shakes his head. “Oh, no. Not for a second.”

* * *

PALMER’S HOUSE

MAC SORT OF FIXED THE DOOR

Jack has been acting weird since they found out who they’re going after, and Mac can’t help but be reminded of when he first met the man, watching Jack take out a nail gun and threaten to impale Kendrick with it in the back of a van.  _ He scared me then. But later I realized it was because Kendrick almost killed Riley, and he was pissed off and scared too. _ There must be more to the team’s history with Beck than Riley and Jack and Matty are letting on. 

Jack’s fierce side doesn’t really scare Mac anymore. He’s seen that protectiveness when it applies to him, Jack’s mama bear anger turned on people like Murdoc or El Noche. But he also knows that Jack’s single-minded desire for answers and revenge can be counterproductive.  _ People can’t tell us anything if he doesn’t leave them in a condition to talk. _ He hopes he and Riley can keep things under control. 

Jack shoves Palmer into a chair in the kitchen. “Sit down. Shut up.”

Palmer looks pretty worried. He’s a small-time thief who did a couple years for burglary. He doesn’t normally play with the big dogs like Beck.  _ Probably didn’t even know who he was working for. _ Mac only ran across a few guys like him inside. Most guys like Palmer haven’t done anything worth getting thrown in a supermax for. “Hey, you can't do-” Jack glares at the man, and he stops talking.

“Let's get comfy. Listen, we know all about your little pharmacological B&E. All right?” 

“What?” Palmer asks.  

Mac steps in, Jack is getting heated and angry, Mac can see a vein throbbing in his neck and his hands are white knuckled on the arms of the chair, like he wants to wrap them around Palmer’s throat. “We know you took the drugs. The pharmacy got you on video.”

“Yeah. Pharmacy's not ringing any bells. Maybe if I saw the video…”

Jack pushes Mac out of the way again. “I should tell you a little something about me. “I'm not a patient man. So we're gonna start over. And you're gonna tell the truth.” He cocks his gun. “Or I'm gonna start ringing your bells for you. You understand?”

Mac shivers slightly. This side of Jack is always disturbing to see. He knows the man would never, ever, hurt him, but it’s still too much like the people he’s been on the wrong side of in the past. He’s grateful for the distraction when Riley’s computer chimes and Jack looks over at her quickly.  

“Before you do, Riley, you got something?” 

“Oh, yeah. I got everything the Coltons have on Beck's activities before and after the shoot-out in Arkansas. While you were trying to big-dog Mama, I was hacking Billy's cell. Which I then used to access the Coltons' shared cloud drive. I'm sending all this to Bozer and Matty now. Hopefully, this will help them figure out why Beck came back to the U. S., and where he is now.”

Jack turns back to Palmer. “Listen, we know his name's Beck. You know him. Palmer, we know you know him. Where is he?”

“I ain't telling you nothing. All you got on me is that I swiped some scripts. That's a year inside. Tops. Bring it on.” Mac still flinches.  _ For me, a year was too long. Way too long. _ He was in trouble in less than a month. Clearly, though, Palmer hasn’t had the same problem. 

“Okay, normally, when you rob a store the way you did, it is, it's just a slap on the wrist, but you stole drugs for a man who's wanted for treason by the U.S. government. Know what that makes you? Hmm? A traitor.” Jack stands up again. And-and what's treason going for these days?”

Mac swallows, then answers for him. “Last I knew, it was a minimum sentence of five years in prison, with a maximum penalty of, um…” He can’t actually bring himself to go on, because the way treason and terrorism are treated are terrifyingly similar. 

“Hanging from a rope till you're dead, right?”

“No, they don't do that anymore. It's lethal injection now.” He shivers.  _ I’m fortunate they didn’t decide I was worth that kind of punishment. _ He’d almost wished they’d given him the quick out, when he was in prison with no hope of ever leaving, but now he’s glad they didn’t. 

“Oh, yeah. Lethal injection. How does that sound? Ringing any bells, pal?” Palmer’s face has gone white. Mac knows what it’s like to find out you’re in way over your head, that it’s so much worse than you ever thought, and for a second it feels like he’s the one in the chair, listening in shock as Detective Greer calmly informs him he’s being charged with domestic terrorism.  _ It feels like you’re falling down a hole and there’s no bottom. _

“All right. All right, fine.” Palmer’s voice is shaking. “But I don't know much.”

“So how does Beck contact you?” Riley asks. 

“Dark Web. Always the Dark Web.” Palmer shrugs. “Pay is good, the jobs are easy.”

“Where did you give Beck the drugs?” Jack asks. 

“I didn't. I've never even seen him in person. I was supposed to take the stuff that he wanted, put it into a blue gym bag, and drop the bag at the lost and found at Village Fitness.” Jack turns to Riley; she’s already typing frantically. 

“That's two miles away.” She packs up her rig. “Beck’s probably gone, but we might be able to get a lead on him.”

“Matty's gonna want to interrogate Captain Sticky Fingers here, about his relationship with Beck, so what's next? We don't have time to wait around for a tac team to come grab him. So we need to put him on ice, now.” Jack glances at Mac. “Any ideas, kid?”

Mac glances from Palmer to the window blinds to the runner rug by the door. “Yeah, I got one.”

Palmer protests the entire time Jack yanks him off the chair and rolls him up in the rug. “Whoa, hey, hey, you can’t do this!” 

“Actually we can, and we just did,” Jack says as Mac finishes securing the blind cord in knots around the rug. He picks up the protesting man and sets him in a closest. “Have fun, burrito boy.” 

“You can’t just leave...mmmph!” Palmer’s voice is suddenly cut off as Riley rips off a strip of duct tape and slaps it across his mouth.

“I see why you keep this around, Mac,” She says with a grin. “Sure comes in handy.” Mac smiles at her as they follow Jack to the car.  _ She seems okay with this whole thing, so what’s wrong with Jack? _

* * *

PHOENIX LABS

SIGNIFICANTLY LESS LIKELY TO EXPLODE WITH MAC IN THE FIELD

Bozer’s pretty sure something is wrong with Matty.  _ She’s more...Matty-the-Hun...ish. Like she was when she first took the director position and was really strict and scary. _ When she handed him the drive of data Riley transferred and asked him to comb through it, he got the feeling that the ‘do it fast or I’ll have your resignation’ was implied. It’s a feeling he hasn’t gotten from her in a long time. 

Something about this case hits home for her. What, he doesn’t know. He was hoping the data Riley sent might tell him more, but so far, there’s nothing that could tie Beck to anything specific in Matty’s past. And he knows better than to ask. 

When Matty and Cage step into the lab, Bozer sort of feels like he ought to snap to attention. Matty looks stern and worried. “Okay. Mac, Jack and Riley have a solid lead and they’re pulling out.  _ Please _ tell me you know why Beck was back on American soil.”

Bozer looks down at his hands guiltily, sorry he doesn’t have better news. “I can't tell you why yet, but after combining our intel with Riley's download from the Coltons, I've got a lot more where.” He pulls up what he’s put together onto the main screen. “Here's a timeline of Beck's activities.”

Matty stares at the spots where blue text fills in the gaps in the Phoenix default grey. “Damn, Coltons. Color me impressed.”

“I know, right? They've got Beck entering the U. S., using a fake ID on a flight into Houston. He then rented a car using the same bogus name and drove east.” Bozer allows the cursor to follow the trail across the map overlay. 

Cage consults the diagram. “He’s dark after that. Until he was pulled over thirteen hours later, just outside of Little Rock, Arkansas, where Porter was killed.”

“Yeah.” Bozer glances at the diagram again. But Cage beats him to the punch of what he was just about to say. 

“Why did it take Beck thirteen hours to get to Little Rock? Drive time from Houston is only seven hours.”

Matty looks at the screen again. “We just discovered a six-hour hole in Beck's timeline.” 

“So either he took an epic pit stop at some Waffle House, or his reason for coming back to America is somewhere inside this circle.” Bozer lays out a radius that takes into account the man’s movements, with some input from Sam, who’s still studying the map with a frown. 

“With all the people looking for Beck, there's no way that he would risk this trip unless there was a very good reason.” Matty turns back to Bozer. 

“Yeah. I've been making a list of everything in this circle, but honestly, it's feeling like a dead end. There’s nothing big, even counting banks and stuff like that, and anyway, I don’t have any police reports of a break in anywhere aside from a couple gas stations and a brewery...I know this dude is smart, but I don’t think he’s Mac, so I doubt he turned beer into a bomb or something like that.” 

Matty looks up at the map again, her face drawn. “Wait a second. There's something inside that area that's not on any map. I’ve got to make a phone call.”

Bozer looks at Cage, but for once the woman seems as confused as he is. She turns back to the map. “While she’s nailing down our ‘why’, what do you say to finding out where Beck was planning on going after he got his mystery prize?”

“You can do that from this?” Bozer asks. Sam raises an eyebrow.  _ Right. I should know better than to even ask. _

* * *

VILLAGE FITNESS

BECK PROBABLY ISN’T A MEMBER.

Riley grins when Jack’s eyes widen at the sight of a weightlifter doing bench presses against the wall when they walk inside the fitness center. “Aw, you could do that, Jack.”

“Yeah, that's a lot of weight right there, Ri.” 

“You should go try it, old man,” she says, smirking.  _ I wish our banter didn’t feel so forced right now. _ She’s just trying to get Jack’s mind off his worry about her, but the closer they get to Beck, the more stressed he is.  _ If he doesn’t stop, I’m not the one we’re going to have to worry about.  _

“Only if you’ll go do twenty pull ups over there.” Jack nods toward where a heavily muscled woman with a crew cut is pulling herself up on the bars with a casual ease. 

A very buff man steps up to them in a shirt with the gym logo on the front, effectively stopping either Jack or Riley from actually testing their limits. “Welcome to Village Fitness. How can we help you folks achieve your health and fitness goals today?” 

Jack pulls the picture of Beck out of his pocket. “We only have one goal today, and that is finding this man.” He glances around nervously as if Beck is waiting somewhere to brain Riley with a dumbbell. “He may have come here, looking for a blue bag?”

“You cops?” The employee asks, suddenly looking worried. 

“Serving a subpoena,” Riley says helpfully.

“All three of you?” The man asks skeptically.  

Jack glares at him. “That's right, Beef Swellington, all three of us. They're shadowing me, because they're new to the firm, obviously.” 

The man shrugs, his massive shoulders twisting. “I'm sorry. If I'd have seen that guy, I would've signed him up immediately for CrossFit. Perfect for the aspiring athlete with more of a lanky build.” He glances at Mac. “Would do wonders for you, my man.”

Jack chuckles. “Yeah, yeah, I-I agree with that, too. Are you sure you haven't seen this guy? Maybe he walked in with a hat or glasses?”  

“Pretty sure. But I just started my shift. Hey, Cindy?” He calls, and a tall woman with a thick blond ponytail practically skips over.  

“Yeah?” She asks, rubbing her forehead with a sweatband around her wrist, also with the gym logo.  

“Did you open today?” 

“Sure did.”

“Then these guys should probably talk to you,” the man says, stepping back. 

Cyndi flashes them a huge pasted-on grin. “Hi. Welcome to Village Fitness. How can I help you achieve your health and fitness goals?”

Jack groans at the second round of the programmed spiel. “Oh, my gosh.” He hands over the photo of Beck. “Sweetie, have you seen this guy?” 

“That guy? Yeah. He forgot his bag, but we had it in the lost and found.” Her voice is way too perky, and Riley can’t decide if this is a requirement for employees or if it’s because she’s not so casually eyeing Jack up.  _ Eew. _

“Okay. And do you know where he went after he found his bag?” 

“I sure do.”  _ Are we really going to get a break in the case that easily? _

“Where?” Mac asks eagerly. But Riley’s already come the the conclusion that is only reinforced a second later.

“He walked outside.”

Jack sighs. “Great. Wow.” He turns toward the door. “Have a great day. Thanks.”

Cindy bounces after them. “You know, if you hurry, you might be able to catch his girlfriend.”

“His girlfriend?” Jack asks.  

“Yeah. His girlfriend and her mom stopped by to pick up the bag earlier, but I told them he already got it. They were here, like, two minutes ago.” 

“Did his mom, by any chance, have a lot of braids in her hair and big earrings?” Riley asks.  _ Because I’m pretty sure I know exactly what’s going on, and now I kind of feel like an idiot. _

“Yeah, actually. They just left.” 

Riley waits until they’re in the car to kick herself. And to check her phone for what she already knows will be there. A mic recorder and a backdoor into her GPS tracker.  “Crap.” Riley groans. “While I was hacking them, they were hacking me. They’re good.” 

“Now what?” Mac asks. “The Coltons got here before we did, which means they’re closer to Beck, right?”

“But they might not be able to follow him like we can.” Riley shakes off the guilty feeling.  _ Just because they hacked you, doesn’t mean you get a free pass for a pity party. You need to get the job done and make up for that mistake by still getting Beck first. _ “I’m gonna get into the street cams. We should be able to see where he went.” 

“Won’t the Coltons just follow us?” Mac asks. 

Riley sighs, she doesn’t have enough time to boot them off her phone  _ and _ follow Beck through the cams. “Yeah. But hopefully we get there first.”

Jack guns the engine, slipping into a space between two cars. “Oh, I know we’ll get there first.” 

* * *

Jack sighs when Mac bends half over in his seat and starts removing the velcro straps on his ankle boot. “Mac…” Jack shakes his head and decides to argue even though he knows a lost cause when he sees one. “You’re not supposed to have that off for another week and a half.”

“I can’t run with it on. And with what I’m planning on doing, Beck’s definitely gonna be making a run for it.”

“And what is this plan of yours that’s gonna make him take off?”

Mac grins. “I need your phone.”

“Hell no!” Jack shakes his head. 

“I’m not gonna break it!” Mac insists, still smiling.  _ You little destructive genius...I don’t think I believe you.  _ “I could use anyone’s phone. It’s just fun to see the look on your face when I ask for yours.”

“It’s not gonna be fun when I throw it at you.” Jack grumbles.

“Then technically it would be your fault it was broken,” Mac says.

“Shut up, kid.” Jack sighs. “I’ll bite. What do you need my phone for?”

“You’ll see.” Mac turns to the back seat. “Riley, do you have an aux cord in your bag?”

“Sure, Mac, why?” She’s already digging through her backpack.

“Don’t ask,” Jack says. “He’s probably gonna break  _ that _ .” Mac glares at him, but takes the phone from where Jack’s laid it on the console and plugs in the aux cord. He opens the phone, types in the pin, and starts scrolling through videos. “Hey, dude, I don’t remember telling you my password.”

“It’s easy. There were a limited number of especially greasy spots on the screen, and given the potential numeric combinations it was easy. Bruce Willis’s birthday.”

“I could have told you that,” Riley says. “It’s been the same thing since the CIA, and no matter how many times I try to tell him that it’s not secure and he has to change passwords more often, he refuses.”

“Give an old man’s limited memory a break, kiddo.” Jack shakes his head.

“I’m actually more confused as to why Mac didn’t  _ already _ know your pin,” Riley chuckles. 

Jack rolls his eyes. “Because every other time he’s taken my phone, he pops the back off and pulls it to pieces.”

“And the emergency call function is accessible without opening the phone itself,” Mac adds. “Okay, we need to park right outside Beck’s apartment building, and when I say, crank the volume all the way up.” 

Mac shows him the phone screen, set to a video of a police siren sound on a continuous loop. Jack grins, now he gets what’s going on in the kid’s head. “Oh, nice. Man, why have we not done this before? It would make LA traffic so much better.”

“Because it’s technically illegal to impersonate law enforcement, Jack.” Riley says. 

“Oh, like we’ve never broken the law before.” Jack shrugs.

“This is it,” Riley says. “I lost him on street cams before the next intersection, but an ATM snagged him going into that apartment building up ahead.” 

“Okay, turn the radio up and everyone spread out,” Mac says.

“Mac, take back, Riley, you take front, I’ll keep an eye on the fire escape,” Jack says.  _ If it was me I’d avoid the doors, so the most likely place we catch him is right there. _ He parks the car, cranks up the radio volume and jumps out, running toward the black metal stairs. Sure enough, before he’s even close, he sees someone diving out a window and racing down the steps, shoes clattering.  _ Gotcha.  _ He scrambles over a chain-link fence, tumbling down into a heap of trash bags, and jumps back to his feet just in time to see a shadow vanish around a corner. He breaks into a dead run and the second he has the fleeing figure in sight, he pounces. 

Jack grabs the running man and tackles him to the ground hard; Beck’s got plenty to pay for and a few bruises aren’t even the full interest on it. “Gotch...wait, you’re not Beck!” Not that he’s not simply a fleeing shadow, Jack recognizes Frank Colton, who’s started fighting like a wildcat and spitting curses at him. “Oh hell no!” 

“Hey! Leave my brother alone!” Someone shouts, and then Jack’s back is stinging and his whole body is shaking with the jolt from a taser.  _ Oh seriously? _

Getting tased hurts. A lot. Jack rolls over in time to see Riley taking a swing at someone, and Mac pulling free from the guy’s grip.  _ Looks like Billy Colton made the same mistake I did. He musta grabbed Mac thinking he was their bounty, and only realized he wasn’t Beck when it was too late. _

Jack struggles to his feet, grimacing as the taser barbs pull free of his skin. The leather jacket stopped some of the impact, but there’s still a burning, aching pain.  _ Better me than Mac or Riley though. _ He turns and glares at Jessie, who shrugs, still holding the taser. 

This is a gigantic mess. Mac is limping again,  _ I knew letting him take that boot off was a bad idea, _ Riley is sporting a nast bruise and a split lip, and Jack’s back still feels like it’s on fire. 

Not that their opponents are much better. Frank’s cheek is scraped where Jack tackled him to the ground, and it looks like Riley’s punch gave as good as she got. Billy’s nursing a badly bleeding nose. And no one has Beck. Apparently, between all the mistaken identities around here, he got away clean. 

There’s a deep roar of an engine, and Jack watches as a red pickup hurtles past.  _ That’s the Coltons’ truck. _ But it sure isn’t Mama Colton at the wheel. 

Billy makes an unintelligible sound of rage and throws himself at the side of the truck, but he isn’t in time to get a grip on the door handle, and he falls to the ground, rolling out of the way of the tires as the truck speeds off. “Damn it!” He gets up, brushing dirt off his clothes. “Mama's gonna be-”

Mama Colton stomps around the corner of the building. “Pissed. You got that right. Now, I expect this kind of unprofessional nonsense from government agents, but from my own flesh and blood?” All three Colton kids stare at the ground. Jack shakes his head. 

“No, no, we told y'all to stand clear. We told you we'd handle it. Now because of y'all, Beck's gone, and I got tased. That hurt, girl.” He frowns at Jessie, and she just shrugs and smirks. 

“Aw, baby got tased?” Mama Colton says with fake sympathy. “Please. Only reason that man ran was because of you and your corny siren trick.” Mac is now the one staring at the ground. Or rather, at his clearly painful leg. “If it hadn't been for y'all, he'd have been cuffed in the back of my truck by now, instead of behind the wheel, running away.”

Riley steps up. “All due respect, Mama, this isn't your average skiptrace. Organizations with a lot more resources than the Colton Bail Bonds have had a hard time catching him, is all I'm saying. Which is exactly why you guys have to back off and let us handle this. Please.” 

“I don't care if he is average, extraordinary or the Devil himself. Beck is our bounty. That's Colton bounty.” Mama shakes her head. Riley knows the feeling.  _ Before I was an agent, I did a few hacks for hire.  _ It kept her and Diane from getting foreclosed on more than once.  _ When your livelihood is that fragile, you’re only as good as your reputation.  _ Artemis 37 wouldn’t get another contract if she failed one hack. And Colton Bail Bonds can’t afford not to come back with their man. 

“Which is why we're not going nowhere,” Billy says, glaring daggers at everyone. 

“Exactly.” Mama turns to Jack.  “So, we can either keep tripping over each other, or we can work together. What you say?” She glances at Mac as well. “You're a smart man. Do the smart thing.”

“Okay. Fine. Mama, you got yourself a deal.” Jack shakes her hand. “But we’re still in charge, okay?”

* * *

Riley’s glad she’s not the one on the call with Matty. Even though it sounds like Jack isn’t exactly getting chewed out. 

“I don't care if you're working with the Coltons or the Kardashians. All I care about is catching Beck.” Matty’s voice is stiff. 

“And all  _ I  _ care about is the reward money Beck will bring in once he's collared.” Mama Colton is going toe to toe with Matty, and Riley’s enjoying watching it.  _ They’re the same kind of person.  _ And Riley likes watching it.  _ I wish I could do that. _

“Okay, and as long as you help us get him, I'll make sure you get your payday. Even if it has to come out of my own pocket.”

“Oh, now that's my kind of contract,” Mama says, smiling. “I like her.”

Matty clearly isn’t swayed by the praise. “So deliver the goods. Now, do we know where Beck is?”

Riley looks up “Uh, not yet, but we're about to. The Coltons' truck was outfitted with a LoJack, which Frank and I are tracking now.”

She immediately wishes she wouldn’t have spoken up, because Matty’s stare turns directly to her. “Well, track faster. Beck isn't the type to stick around when he feels the heat. And if he manages to flee the country this time, well, we might never see him again.” She glances at Riley. “Palmer may know more than he’s telling. Even if he doesn’t think he does. I want to get him in a room with Cage ASAP, before Beck has time to ghost on us again.” Matty says. “Riley, you’ll escort him on the first flight back to LA.”

“Me?” Riley asks. “Matty, I know Beck better than almost anyone else. I’m more use on the ground here than being babysitter for our kleptomaniac friend.”  _ She can’t pull me from this. Beck is someone that my skill set is optimal to trace. _ Not that she thinks it would be too much better to send Jack, but Mac is injured and he really shouldn’t even be in the field yet.  _ He’s already helped us track Beck down to the point we can find him ourselves. If anyone needs to be kept away from the line of fire, it’s him. _ Mac seems to be supremely unlucky when it comes to field injury. 

“Riley. I want  _ you _ on that plane with him. Did I not make that clear?”

“But Matty…”

“No. Beck knows we’re onto him now. Do I need to remind you what happened the last time he did?” Riley clenches a fist around the arm of the couch. The memory of the rattle of gunfire, adrenaline flooding her veins, cold concrete biting into the palms of her hands, hasn’t faded much with time.

“No, Matty.”

“Good. Then get your butt on the first plane from Atlanta to LA.” Matty’s voice won’t stand for argument.  _ If this was Patty it would be different.  _ Riley can’t help feeling slightly resentful. Matty is only pulling her off this op because  _ she _ has a personal connection to their last run-in with Beck. Thornton would have seen that Riley needs to be here, on the ground, she would have been objective. But there isn’t time to argue, not with Beck on the run. 

Mama Colton speaks up. “Hold up, wait a minute. Palmer has an outstanding warrant in Nevada. He's worth a whole lot of money, honey. And I'd feel much more comfortable if my Billy were to transport him to you for questioning, then, take him on down to Nevada for processing and payment.”  _ Yes. Please agree to that. _ Riley knows Matty probably won’t, but Mama Colton has been driving hard bargains. 

“Okay. Riley and Billy can transport Palmer together. Final offer.”  _ Did she really manage to just make it worse? _ Riley already didn’t want to do this. But doing it with the guy who either hates her or has a really weird crush on her is definitely going to make this in the top ten worst missions ever.

Billy’s been acting weird since he saw her again. She knows he was making eyes at her the first time they met, as soon as he found out she and Bozer weren’t actually an item. And he’s been giving her side glances when he thinks she’s not looking. 

Billy gives a holler of success that makes Riley jump. “Guys, I found our truck. Beck's heading west on Highway 20.”

Matty shakes her head as if asking why they’re all still standing around. “Okay, well, that's where you need to be. Riley and Billy, grab Palmer and hop the first flight to L.A. The rest of you, go get me Beck.”

“All right, then,” Mama says. “Well, do we know where Palmer is?”

Mac grins. “Uh, yeah, he's rolled up in a carpet in his closet at his house.”

Billy stares at him. “Seriously?”  

“You wanted us to just let him go?” Jack shrugs. “Okay, kids, you heard her. Let’s roll.” Riley sighs and stands up.  _ This is going to be just great. _

* * *

WAR ROOM

MATTY WISHES SHE WAS IN THE FIELD RIGHT NOW

Matty’s sole consolation is that Riley is out of the line of fire. She’s booked on a flight from Atlanta to L.A. that leaves in the next half hour, and she’s not alone.  _ I know I gave in to Mama Colton’s demand about Billy joining her awfully easy, but the truth is, I feel safer knowing someone, anyone, is watching her back. _ She would prefer it be one of her own people, but the Coltons are good. And Mac and Jack can’t also be pulled off the op.  _ Where one of them goes, so does the other. _

It used to be that way with Riley and Jack. But then Riley got her full agent status and she’s done exactly what she’s supposed to with it. Become more independent, more self-sufficient. Still part of a team, but no longer a subordinate.  _ Jack still sees her as his little girl, and so do I or I wouldn’t be pacing my office right now fretting about her safety.  _ Matty sighs. No matter what her clearances say, in the eyes of her family, Riley is still their daughter to be protected. 

Her video call chimes with an incoming message, and she pushes thoughts of Riley aside to focus on the mission. 

“Deputy Director Rowell. I appreciate the return call.”

“Always happy to hear from you, Director Webber.” His expression suggests otherwise. 

“Good. Then, I'll get right to it: does the DoD still operate an off-the-books intel facility just south of Little Rock, Arkansas?” 

“I can neither confirm nor deny-” 

Matty definitely doesn't have time for this. “Oh, cut the crap. I think you still have that facility. And I think that facility was broken into in the last 48 hours. And I think that Emil Beck stole something big. Now, I would like to know what that was.”

When Matty hangs up the call, her hands are shaking. She dials Riley’s number, only to get a notification that she can’t be reached. Her plane is already in the air.  _ No. This can’t happen.  _ She knows there’s an incredibly small chance that what she’s imagining would actually happen, but the fact remains that for once, air travel might not statistically be the safest way to travel.

She looks down at the phone in her hand and takes a deep breath. There’s no sense in scaring Riley, it’s all theoretical at this point and there’s nothing she can do from up there. She’s already pissed about being pulled off the op, and this would only add to her stress. Matty dials a different number instead.  _ If we get Beck first, we have nothing to worry about. _

* * *

Mac doesn’t like the looks of the alley they follow the Coltons’ truck into. The vehicle has been seemingly abandoned at the end of it, with no sign of Beck anywhere, and there’s a distinct smoky scorched smell. Mac steps hesitantly out of the SUV, stumbling slightly when his boot refuses to balance on the running board. 

Jessie starts forward. “There's our truck.”

“Wait. Guys…” He knows exactly why this looks wrong.  _ They were right, Beck is a lot like me. Because this is what I would do. _ Mac has used the ‘gas tank on fire’ trick a few times himself to slow down cartel goons, create a distraction, or most often a combination of the two. He turns and ducks just as the back of the truck explodes. 

“Oh, Billy's not gonna like this,” Jessie mumbles.  _ She has the same talent for understatement as Jack... _

“Oh, that’s low. Rigging it to explode, then running off.” Jack shakes his head. 

Mama shakes her head. “He didn't run off. He stole whatever was parked over there.” She points to a spot on the pavement where there are fresh black burnt-rubber marks. 

Frank nods toward the still flaming vehicle. “The truck's dashcam probably got a good view of Beck's new ride.”

“The SD card  _ for _ the dashcam?” Mac asks. 

“Glove compartment,” Frank mutters. 

“And the glove compartment's  _ en fuego _ . In case y’all hadn’t noticed,” Jack observes.  _ Thanks. I missed that. _ “Mac, I know you love sticking your hands in burning stuff, but please don’t do that again.” He swallows.  _ Yeah, I don’t want to lose the use of my hands again for...well, ever, if possible. _ Those weeks sucked. A lot. 

Mac glances around for the most readily available solution.  _ I wonder if I should be worried that I know so many different ways to put out fires, and most of them from personal experience? _ “There’s extra coolant in the back of all our vehicles.”

“What are you going to do, run up and dump it on the fire? You can’t get that close to the truck,” Jack says. 

“No, I actually have a much better plan.” Mac grins. “Just fill the coolant reservoir as full as it can get. Like, until it wants to overflow.” He runs over to a nearby wall, where a section of gutter runs down to a round pipe. “And then turn the car on and put it in neutral, then gun the engine. Get it hot.” He tugs on the pipe, and it’s close to coming off right in his hands. All he has to do is snap the metal strap around it, and he can pull it free of the wall.  _ Learned the hard way that these things aren’t always very sturdy. _

Mac turns around and starts to run back with the drainpipe, but his boot catches on something on the ground and he goes down hard, crashing to the dirt and rolling over several times with the momentum before he stops. 

“You alright honey?” Mama Colton asks, her attention completely pulled away from the burning truck.

Mac scrambles back to his feet, shoving aside Jack’s offer of a helping hand, feeling his cheeks flaring red with embarrassment. “Yeah. I’m fine.” He lifts the pipe again. “Just get in the car, put it in neutral, and gun it.” 

Jack nods, and does exactly that. Mac removes the coolant hose and quickly shoves the drainpipe over where the greenish fluid is starting to blow out the top. The spray floods out over the truck, and the flames start to die down.

“You’ve got a window, go now!” Mac shouts. Frank runs up, yanks open the glove compartment, and pulls out the scorched SD card holder. Mac hopes the card itself is still intact. Frank plugs the device into his computer and starts typing. It seems weird to watch someone other than Riley doing that.

“Hey. Is your leg okay?” Jack asks quietly.

“Yeah. I’m fine.” Mac glares at the boot like it personally offended him.  _ Great, now I made myself look like a fool in front of all of them.  _

“You took quite a spill there, son.” Mama Colton is watching him as well.  _ I don’t need you mother henning me too. You don’t even know me. _ He’s just glad it’s not like last year when being on the ground would have given him a literal panic attack. Not that Mama doesn’t know about his past anyway. She pegged it the last time she saw him. 

“I’m fine.”

“That look in your eyes says otherwise.” Mac sighs, leaning against the car, breathing against the throbbing ache in his leg from the fall. “Listen, Angus, do you know why I work with family?” He shakes his head slightly, not even bothering to correct her on his name. He can tell she’s being serious about something. “It’s because no one will ever have your back like they will. But family ain’t just blood. And when somethin’ happens, they’re not gonna kick you for fallin. They’re gonna help you right back up. And you oughta let ‘em. There’s no shame in needin’ someone else once in a while.”

Mac nods. I was getting better about that. But this mess with James...His thoughts are interrupted by Frank speaking up. “Okay, downloading the footage now.”

He turns the computer so everyone can see the images of Beck walking over to a black Audi, then smashing out the driver’s window and climbing in.

“Why is he wearing a tux?” Jack asks. “Dude steals a car, sets it on fire, and takes time to change into formal wear?”

Mama just shakes her head. “Screengrab that plate, Frank. All right, let's figure out where he's going.”

* * *

Riley types a quick reply and hits send. She can’t exactly tell Demitrius what she’s doing, he doesn’t even know she’s out of town.  _ I’d rather not deal with messy cover stories that I don’t have time to think through. _

She turns to see Billy staring at her. “Your phone's been blowing up since we got through security. What's his name?” Riley deliberately turns away. “Come on, let me guess. Chip. No, no, Chuck.”

Riley just shakes her head. 

“So, how you and Chuck meet? You been dating him long?” 

“His name's not Chuck, okay? And why do you care, exactly?” Riley asks.  

Billy shrugs. “Just making conversation. It's a long flight.” 

“Oh. Well, on long flights, I like to watch movies.” Riley pulls her phone and her headphones out of her backpack. “You know, quietly. Without any talking.”

“Is he tall?”

Palmer looks nervously between the two of them. “You two want to sit next to each other, or...?”

“No.” Riley hears Billy’s voice overlap with hers.  _ Good. Leave me alone.  _ “His name's Demitrius. We met at one of those speed-dating things, and I don’t know what we are. I wouldn’t exactly call it dating, okay?” She glares at him.  _ D says he’s fine with us figuring each other out before we call ourselves anything official.  _ It’s too soon to know if they’re even compatible. “You happy now?” 

“You met at a speed-dating? What even is that?” Billy asks.

“You go to a bar and there’s a bunch of diff…”

“I know what it  _ is. _ I’m just saying. You think the guys who go to those things are really interested in a relationship?” Riley bites her lip at the unspoken implication.  _ What does he think I do when I meet guys? _

“Some of us get forced into it by our parents, you know. And he’s not like that. He wants to take it slow, just like me.” 

“Has he at least given you flowers?” Billy asks. 

“The idea of a man bringing a woman flowers is outdated. Flowers die in a few days, and then what? It's just garbage in a vase.” She shrugs.  _ Elwood brought flowers every time he apologized to Mom for hurting her, every time he tried to get back together. It meant nothing.  _

“Maybe. But I was raised to show a woman appreciation and respect. One way to do that is to give her flowers.”

“Besides, flowers really brighten up a room,” Palmer says, then cringes at their glares.

“Then can you appreciate my plans to watch a movie in peace?” Riley asks. Billy chuckles. “Not that it's any of your damn business, but I travel a lot for work and I just don't have time for some super complicated relationship right now.”

“I don't buy that.” Billy looks at her like he can see inside her head, and she glances away. “No, see, I think time isn’t the problem. And I don’t think it’s the traveling, either. I think, and now I'm just guessing here, but it seems an awful lot like someone hurt you and you’re trying not to let it happen again.”

“I didn't know they offered psychotherapy classes at bounty hunting school.” Riley says, snappishly. He’s hit too close to home for her comfort.  _ I let Nick become an important part of my life. Tearing his roots out of the corners of everything hurt. I don’t want to do that again. _

“Look, what you need is a man that you can count on. One that always comes through and never lets you down.”

“And let me guess, you're that kind of man.” Riley frowns. “What I  _ don’t _ need is to be relying on anyone but me to come through in a crisis. Okay? All right, I'm gonna need you to dial it down on the cockiness.”

“Look, in my line of work, confidence is key. Now, the guys that I deal with every day will chew you up and spit you out if they smell one shred of weakness.” Billy smirks. “Now, if you want to know what kind of guy I am, Ms. Davis, all you got to do is just look through my phone.”

“Then you should know me, since you did the same thing.” Riley snaps. “And you should know that the only men in my life I want to rely on are my family.” 

“And you don’t think that family can grow?” She doesn’t have a good answer for that. Billy settles back into his seat and pulls his hat over his eyes. “Enjoy the movie, Miss Davis.” 

* * *

Mac stares up at the huge brick mansion, and the expensive cars driving in. “And we're sure this is where he went?” Jack asks. Mac feels the same. The sign out front says this is a charity gala for cystic fibrosis.  _ Not exactly the kind of venue I’d expect Beck to make an appearance at.  _

“Well, according to your people, the car Beck stole is parked on this property right now.” Mama says. Mac wishes she’d stop giving him that hovering parent look. He’s getting enough of it from Jack. 

“Any idea who owns this place?” Jack asks. 

Frank starts typing. Mac guesses he’s their ‘Riley’. “Looks like it's actually owned by a shell company. Which is owned by…” He frowns. “Another shell company.”

Mama glances out the window again. “Making this a very shady charity event.”

Mac nods.  _ I really hate it when people steal the facade of a good thing to do something bad.  _ His phone buzzes, and he reaches into his pocket for it.  _ Matty’s taken to calling me with important updates because of how many times I’ve broken Jack’s phone, and he hasn’t said anything about it yet.  _ He guesses that’s probably because the less Jack has to talk to Matty when the mission isn’t going as planned, the happier he is. 

“Hey, Matty.”

“Tell me you've got Beck in custody.” Her voice is disturbingly shaky.  _ She and Jack have been on edge all this op. And what she said to Riley back there when we were all talking to her… _ He can put enough together to get that the last time they tried to take Beck down, Riley got in trouble of some kind. And Matty and Jack are both trying to protect her. 

“Almost. We're working on it.” 

“Well, then work faster. I just learned what he stole...from the DoD.”

“Oh, that can't be good.” Jack frowns.

“It's not. 72 hours ago, the DoD discovered a security flaw in the software that regulates the engines in most planes, both commercial and military. If it’s triggered, it shuts down the temperature regulators on the engines, and causes them to overheat.”

“That's a heck of a flaw,” Mac mumbles.  _ I’ve been on a falling plane before. Not fun.  _

“They were working on a patch when Beck breached the facility, but they haven’t been able to complete it and send it out to the airlines to be uploaded yet.” Matty sighs. “Which means someone who has the access to the design flaw can still exploit it.” 

“That sounds like a fancy way of saying Beck stole the ability to knock a plane out of the sky,” Jessie says. 

“Not a plane. Any plane at any time. You guys need to get it back. Now.”

“Any idea how he knew about it?” Mac asks. “That’s a short time frame, could he have had someone on the inside of the DoD he was paying off, like Palmer?” Finding their CIA mole who leaked Sergei’s information a few weeks ago has left him more than a little skeptical.  _ It seems that almost anyone has their price. _

Matty sighs. “As far as we can tell, Beck left backdoors to his old agency access before he left the country, and we can’t seem to find and close them. Riley’s going to be working on that with me once she lands. Since he used one recently, we might stand a better chance of tracking him with it. But, if you do your jobs and bring him in, it won’t really matter whether we can manage to shut them all. So go get him.” 

Mac hangs up. “I’m going to go see if I can find us a way in.”

“No parkour, okay?” Jack says, looking pointedly at Mac’s boot.  _ That’s not even how I hurt myself. _

“Okay.” Mac’s hoping there will be a space along the perimeter that they can cross. But whoever set this place up was serious. Electrified razor wire lines the top of the fence, hidden by the decorative railing but still incredibly dangerous. And every gate has at least two guards posted at it. 

He finally turns and walks back to the car. He doesn’t want to admit defeat, but he just can’t see anything other than the risky plan that’s been forming in his head. 

“So, how we looking?” Jack asks. 

“Every entrance is guarded. So much for sneaking through the back.”

Jessie speaks up, glancing from the computer to Mac. “Well, we've been tracking their security patterns on the satellite your boss lent us. These guys are good. Like "can't find a hole in their security" good.” 

“So, Mr. Secret Agent Man, what's the plan?” Mama Colton asks. 

Jack cuts in first. “Well, I figure we climb one of these big-ass trees. Mac can make a grappling hook out of whatever grappling hook supplies you can whip up.” Mac rolls his eyes. “Don't act like you can't do it. Then I'll rodeo-toss said hook across to the roof of the other mansion, and then we'll tightrope…” Jack moves his fingers as if he’s miming walking across the rope, “right across.”

“How 'bout we walk in as guests?” Mac counteroffers.  _ I’d fall and break my neck with that plan of Jack’s. Not that I couldn’t make something similar work, but this is a whole lot easier. _ Even if he’s scared to death that something will go wrong. He can’t forget what happened at that casino poker game.  _ Not that anyone’s going to make that assumption at a place like this, but I still don’t like it. _

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

* * *

Jack frowns as Mac rips the velcro straps on his boot open and tosses the whole thing in the back of the car. “Should you really be taking that boot off again?”

“It doesn’t really go with the tux. Besides, I’m good. I’ve worked on hairline fractures before.” Mac says it so casually Jack flinches.  _ I mean, I have too, but… _ It just hurts to think of  _ Mac _ doing it. 

He turns around to give the kid some privacy while he changes. Mac seems to be pretty comfortable around him at this point, but Jack always feels guilty when he sees the kid’s new scars.  _ He shouldn’t have them. I should have protected him better. _

Jack’s own suit isn’t fitting all that well, and he hopes it doesn’t rip out in any embarrassing places before this is over.  _ I’ll just have to keep the dropkicking goons and doors to a minimum. _ Mac already picks on him for the ewok underwear. He doesn’t need to get grief for Yoda. 

_ I really should have tried harder to find the right size guy. _ But he’d singled out the first car he saw with two men inside. “I think we should have gone with the "climb a big-ass tree, grappling hook" plan,” Jack mumbles. “Look at this.”

Mac steps out from behind the bush where he’s been changing. His suit fits perfectly, although he’s managed to mess his hair up pretty well. Jack forces himself not to lick his hand and tame the cowlick the way Momma used to. “Uh…”

“Don’t sugar-coat it, kiddo. I look like I rented a tux from a children’s store.” Jack stares at the pants over the too-tight shoes. “They’re high-waters.”

“Maybe that’ll come in handy,” Mac says, sounding thoroughly unconvinced of that. “Do you wanna trade?”

“Nah. No sense in both of us looking stupid, and that’d waste time we don’t have.” Jack can tell Matty’s scared. Actually scared.  _ She wants this op done. So do I. _ “And besides, you look better in white than I do.” Mac gives him a half-smile. 

Matty’s voice buzzes through their comms. “Okay, your infil team is ready.”  _ Infil being the Coltons and our half-baked...literally...plan. _ “Oh, and Mac, once you've stopped Beck, I'm gonna need a picture of Jack in that tux for his permanent file.”

“No, there's gonna be no permanent file photo. Stop it.” Jack says. Mac grins at him. “Okay, but only if it’s both of us.” He reaches up and ruffles Mac’s hair even more, and the kid shoves his hand away, chuckling. “Hey, hold on, I’m just gonna fix it.”

He does end up having to lick his hand to get some of the stubborn strands to stay in place. Mac makes a face at him, but lets him fuss, and for a second he looks so much like he’s no more than twelve that Jack feels a lump in his throat.  _ What would it have been like to have actually been there for this kid when he was growing up? _ He hates James as much for having abandoned the son who needed him as for any other heinous thing the man’s ever done.  _ Mac deserved at least one parent to fuss over him. And with his mom gone, it should have been his dad. _ But Jack doubts James was ever the type to do that. 

“Uh, Jack, I think it’s not going anywhere now,” Mac says, and Jack stops, pulling his hand back and wiping it self-consciously on his pants.  _ Aww kiddo I just wish I coulda done this sooner.  Making up for lost time. _

He can hear Mama Colton starting to talk to the guard at the gate.  _ That’s our signal. She’ll distract them while we slip inside.   _ “Please tell me this is where deliveries go. Because I have got a van full of buttermilk pie that needs to be refrigerated A.S.A.P.”

“You're at the wrong entrance. All deliveries go to the back.”

“Oh, no, no, no. My delivery instructions were quite clear. I was to make my delivery here at the front gate. And, well, here I am.” Jack can see the van now, it looks like all but one of the guards is watching what’s happening there.  _ Come on, man, just get distracted for a few seconds. That’s all we need. _ Frank’s got control of the gate latches, and he should have them undone by now.

“Ma'am, we need you to turn your van around. Now.”

“Oh, I see what y’all are doing here,” Mama says, her voice getting louder. “Is this the white people’s entrance now? Are you sending me around back because I am  _ a black woman? _ ” The guard is really getting nervous now, Mac can tell all his attention is focused on trying to prevent this incident from getting even more out of hand. As it is, people are starting to stare. “Listen to me, my momma did not march in the streets for you to tell me I can’t drive through whatever gate…”

“Ma’am, this isn’t about race, it’s just that there is a designated delivery gate, and this is for guests.”

Jack slips through the gate, missing whatever Mama Colton says in rebuttal. Mac is right behind him. 

Once they get inside, Jack grabs two glasses from a waiter and hands one to Mac. The kid looks at him with a confused frown. 

“What? It might come in handy,” Jack says. “Can’t you, like make chloroform outta that or something?”

“No…” Mac says. “Jack, why are you acting so weird?”  _ Because you deserve a better dad than that monster who’s toying with you. And I want to be that person, but you deserve better than me, too. _

He has to know what Mac’s thinking about when it comes to James, because knowing the kid, he hasn’t stopped thinking about it since they found those pictures. “Okay, Mac. I need you to be honest with me…”

“Okay. If you think you can be mature about it.” Mac looks at him, and Jack nods solemnly. He’s not going to scare the kid off telling him the truth.  _ I won’t freak out and as Riley puts it, go all wookie on him. _

“I promise. Full adult maturity here.” 

“Yes, I think Billy likes Riley, and I think she likes him too.”  _ Whoa. What? _ That is not where Jack thought this was going. “Like I said, Jack, don’t freak out.”

“Why would I freak out about that? She’s an adult. She can decide who she dates.”  _ Sure, I think she can do better, but then again, so could Diane, so maybe we should all count our blessings. Honestly, I don’t think anyone deserves her, but that’s a dad talking. _ He’ll admit he’s a little overprotective since the whole Nick thing, but... _ Okay, I am freaking out. Just a little. _ “She barely even knows him though. Are you sure?”

“I mean, that’s how it starts, normally.” Mac shrugs. “And yeah. Those two have been looking funny at each other since they tried to knock each other out at Beck’s apartment.”

“You sure that isn’t mutual concussions?” 

“Yeah.” Mac glances at him. “Please don’t let her know I told you. She’d kill me.” 

“Yeah, no, I won’t.” Jack shakes his head.  _ Seriously Ri?  _ He hasn’t had the greatest first, or second, impression of Colton, but he has to admit the guy probably feels the same way about him.  _ And I didn’t like Mac either at first. But I thought Nick was gonna be a stand-up guy. _ He takes a deep breath and reminds himself to trust Riley’s judgment. She’s avoided dating for over a year after Nick betrayed her. She’s not going to take any commitment lightly.  _ She’s almost as paranoid about guys she dates as I am.  _

He has to shake it off and think about the mission. But the problem is, as soon as he stops worrying about one of his kids’s problems with a man, he just starts thinking about the other one.  _ Mac’s lying to us all about dropping the search for James. And I know it.  _ Jack gets why the kid’s doing it. He’s got to admit he’d probably do the same thing, if someone threatened his family. But he hates to watch Mac take that road. 

He glances at Mac, who’s scanning the room and hopefully oblivious to Jack studying him.  _ Great, thanks for cluing me in to my daughter’s love life, but what I really wanna know is what’s going on with you. _ But Mac finds a way to change the subject before he can ask.

“Do you see Beck in here at all?” 

Jack glances around, stopping when he sees the mountain of muscle by the staircase. “Ooh, no. No, but I do see Gigantor the staircase guard. I bet you dollars to donuts our boy's upstairs somewhere.”

“Yeah.” Mac frowns. 

“Probably trying to sell the glitch to whoever owns this place.” Jack glances at the glass in Mac’s hand. “Too bad you really can’t make chloroform outta that.” He slams a fist into his hand. “Hey, I might bust a few stitches on this kiddie tuxedo, but I think I can one-punch that guard into a midday nap for you, if you want.” 

“You're not gonna do that. 'Cause if you do, all the other guards are gonna come runnin'.”

“Oh, come on, man. I'm all stretched out. Let me do it.”  _ I need to punch someone. And since neither Beck or your deadbeat dad are in the immediate vicinity,  _

“No,” Mac insists, switching his comms back on. “Hey, Mama Colton, are you patched into the security team's radio system yet? I need you to move a guard for me.”

“Where do you want him, honey?” Momma asks.  

“Preferably outside.”

Jack can hear Frank Colton’s voice coming through. “I need all security to the front entrance. I repeat, all security to the front entrance now.”

“Um, he's not leaving. I can still punch him,” Jack says. 

“Now means now, people! Move.” 

The guard finally steps away, hurrying out the front door, and Mac sighs. “All right, that did it.”

“Nice work,” Jack says. “All right, let's make our move.”

The two of them hurry upstairs and down the first hallway they come to. Jack stops at the sight of a heavy metal door set into the frame at the very end of the hall. 

“Well, that's not conspicuous at all. Might as well be a giant neon sign on the door that says ‘Bad Things Happen in Here’.” Jack’s seen a few too many of those rooms in his day. 

Mac leans in toward the door, and Jack stops walking or moving. Kid’s gonna need the quiet to listen to what’s happening on the other side. Jack can hear tiny snatches of it, but he’ll be the first to admit that his eardrums have been damaged a few too many times.  _ It’s a good excuse when Matty gives me an order I don’t wanna listen to, but it sucks when I’m trying to hear what evil plots are happening behind closed doors.  _ As it is, he can only really pick out the low hum of voices, at least one with a strong Russian accent. 

Mac jerks back from the door and looks up, panting. “Beck is gonna use the glitch to take a plane down now, and…” Mac’s eyes are wide. “It sounds like he’s talking about Riley’s.”

“Step aside, bud, I'm gonna freight train this bad boy.” Jack is not about to let this creep even think about hurting Riley again.  _ He’s not gonna get the chance. I already thought he killed her once.  _

“No, no, no, no. It's reinforced steel with titanium locks. All you're gonna do is hurt yourself and let them know we're here.”

“I’m not gonna let him kill Riley.”

“Neither am I.” Mac’s voice is the scary determined one that he gets when he’s going to do something or die trying. 

“Okay, then so what's the plan? 'Cause I don't see you being able to jimmy that door open with a credit card.”

Mac’s opened up his suit jacket and is staring at his own stomach, and then he glances up at Jack. “Cummerbund, give me your cummerbund.”

“Okay…” Jack pulls it off and hands it over, watching as Mac starts pulling down some of the heavy tasseled ropes on the window curtains. “I don't see how my crumb catcher's gonna help you open a steel door.”

Mac glances toward a bust of someone Jack thinks might be a famous author that’s sitting on a table in the hall. “We're gonna use our head.” Jack chuckles, in spite of the situation.  _ Looks like my bad puns are rubbing off on you, kid.  _

Their makeshift battering ram smashes into the door, and half the marble dude’s head breaks off and goes flying in shards all over the hallway, but the door rattles in its hinges, and the second hit sends it flying into the room.

Jack runs directly over it, punching the first guy in his way and then pulling his gun out of the too-tight waistband of his pants and aiming it at another of the goons. He hears a gasp as Mac punches another guy, and turns just a little to see the kid shaking out his hand. Jack kicks the guns out of his guy’s hands, hearing cloth tearing and stitches popping in his suit, and then points his gun at Beck, who’s just getting up from behind a desk with a computer, which Mac dives forward to pull away from him. 

The kid’s momentum sends him right across the desk, sprawling onto the floor, and Jack winces.  _ Please don’t break your leg again. _ Mac sets the computer back onto the desk, panting and wincing, holding his one foot slightly off the floor.

Jack glares at Beck as he puts down his gun and pulls zipties out of his pocket. “Looks like the deal's off.”

Mac looks up, pure panic in his eyes. “We're too late to stop the demo. He's already uploaded the virus. And it’s definitely on Riley’s plane.”

“How did he…” Jack trails off.  _ Those damn backdoors. He was watching us the whole time. _ No wonder he was staying a step ahead. Every time they sent in an update, he probably knew about it. Jack curses and then punches Beck right in the nose, just as the Coltons rush into the room. 

“Jack, he might have been our only chance of stopping that virus.” Mac says, still looking absolutely terrified.

“No. Our best chance of stopping it is thirty thousand feet in the air, right now.” Jack pulls out his phone and starts dialing. 

It looks like Mama Colton’s put the pieces together, because the look on her face when she turns from the computer to Jack is one of pure devastation. “Look, that's my child up there. Tell me you can do something.”

“That’s my child up there too. And there's nothing we can do from down here. It's all up to Riley now.” Jack hears a familiar voice on the other end of the line.  _ Come on, kiddo. You can do this. It’s up to you to save yourself. _

* * *

FORTY THOUSAND FEET UP

NOWHERE TO GET AWAY FROM ANNOYING NEIGHBORS

Riley’s trying to ignore the truly aggravating sounds of Palmer’s snoring when she feels one of the flight attendants tapping on her shoulder. “Excuse me. Are you Riley Davis?” 

“Yes.” She frowns; something feels off. 

“There's a call for you.”

“Thanks.” She stumbles to her feet, her legs are stiff from sitting in one position for so long. The attendant hands her the phone. “This is Riley Davis.” She swallows the knot of fear in her throat.  _ Nothing is wrong, maybe they got Beck. Maybe they want to let me know.  _

Jack’s voice on the other end is forcedly cheerful. That’s never a good sign. “Riles, it's me. You have your laptop in your carry-on, right?” 

“Yeah, like always, why?”

“Beck just used stolen intel from the DoD to sabotage your plane.” Riley freezes. It feels like they’re already falling. 

“Like like no in-flight movies or sabotage, like-like drop out of the sky?” 

“The second one, in less than five minutes. The engines are going to overheat and fail. He's already uploaded the glitch and there's nothing we can do to stop it from the ground, which means that the only person that can save the lives of everyone on board your plane is you.” 

Riley swallows hard.  _ I’ve hacked planes before. Military jets falling out of the sky, with me and my whole team on them.  _ She walks back to her seat in a daze, looking at the passengers around her.  _ If I can’t fix this, I’ve killed them all. The only reason Beck targeted this plane is because I’m on it. I put all of these people in danger, and I have to save them.   _ She grabs her rig from the luggage compartment overhead. She pulls her wallet out, grabs a credit card, and starts logging into the airplane wifi.

Billy glances over, clearly wondering what’s going on with her frantic typing. “So is there anything you want to tell me?”  

“Yeah.” She lowers her voice, staring at him. “I need to get online and hack into the plane's control system, or we're gonna crash.”

“I'm sorry,  _ what _ ?” 

“Don't panic. Okay? Panicking doesn't help.” The last thing she needs is for anyone else to find out about this. The more distractions, the more trouble. She can’t afford to waste any time. 

“I'm-I'm not panicking, but I definitely need to hear what's going on, and I need to hear it now.” Billy’s insistent, but clearly not as freaked out as Riley was afraid of.  _ He’s not a civilian, not a normal one, anyway. _

“Okay, okay. Two second version: Beck stole some secret DoD glitch that allows him to crash planes. And he's had a vendetta against me for years. See, this is why I don't have serious dates! Being around me is dangerous!” 

The plane lurches, and the seatbelt light dings. Riley doesn’t have time to fasten hers. She’s past the plane’s firewalls. Palmer groans as the plane shifts, blinking blearily awake. “Okay. Okay, Beck's glitch just knocked the temperature controls for both engines offline.”

“I'm assuming that's a bad thing,” Billy says, his hands white-knuckled on the seat. 

“Well, yeah, without them, the-the engines will overheat, and then seize, and then…” 

“Yep. Got it. So how much time do we have?” 

“Four minutes, give or take.” Riley hates that she knows so much about all the ways to die. 

“I don’t wanna die…” Palmer says, then stops when Riley glares at him. 

“Okay, what's the plan?” 

“I don't know, but answering questions doesn't help!” Riley shouts. The plane shakes again, and this time everyone realizes it’s not turbulence. 

“We’re all gonna-” Palmer is shouting, but there’s a thud and then silence. Riley looks over to see Billy shrugging. 

“What? You said you didn't want distractions.”  _ There’s a whole plane full of them now.  _ Passengers are screaming and crying, and the plane is lurching worse than ever. Riley almost drops her laptop into the aisle, and when she rights herself she curses under her breath.

“What?!” She gasps. 

“What, what, what?” Billy asks. Now he does sound scared. 

“I just lost the damn connection." She can't let herself focus on anything but her anger, she has to fix this. "God, I hate airplane Wi-Fi.”  _ It cuts out at the worst times… _   “That's it.” Riley begins typing again, as fast as she can.

“Looks like you got a plan,” Billy says, and Riley hates hearing the hope in his voice.  _ Don’t count on me. That’s too much pressure. _

“Kind of. It's an insane plan, but insane plans always work for Mac, so...You know when your phone freezes? And you reboot it to kick out the bug or whatever was causing it to freeze.  And for like a minute, it's a useless brick, until you turn it back on and it works perfectly fine, no bugs.”

“Yeah…”

“I'm about to do that to the plane.” She takes a deep breath. One more keystroke and there’s no going back. She can hear the engines whining, overheated and supercharged, and the plane is shaking so hard she can feel her teeth rattling together. 

“Okay, so how long does it take a plane to reboot since we'll be plummeting till then? 

“As long as we're above 20,000 feet, it should reboot before we hit the ground.”  _ But that’s factoring in a lot of guesswork. _ She hits the last key, and the plane goes dark, aside from the light streaming in the windows. She turns to Billy, seeing his fingers white-knuckled on the seatbelt. “You might want to tighten that up. These next few minutes are gonna suck.”

Riley can hear the flight attendant talking over the PA system. “Brace. Brace. Brace. Heads down. Stay down. Brace. Brace. Brace.” She drops into the crash position almost automatically. It won’t be the first time she’s ridden a plane all the way down, but her only crash  _ was _ a small Cessna in Alaska three years ago.  _ That really sucked. _ She broke her arm, and Jack fractured his collarbone and had a bad concussion. This will probably be worse. 

Billy glances over at her. “Riley. The engines aren't…”

“I know.” He’s reaching out his hand to her, and she twines her own fingers into his.  _ It might be the last thing I ever do.  _ And then there’s a roaring rush, and Riley hears the engines kick back in. She’s flung against the seat as the plane pulls up, and there’s a jarring rattle, but then the plane levels out again. Riley leans back against the seat with a gasping sigh of relief, feeling two hot tears tracing down her cheeks.  _ I did it. I did it. _

* * *

Jack can’t stop pacing. It feels like the seconds are going by too fast. He flinches when the timer on Mac’s phone goes off. So does Mac. The poor kid is white as his jacket, twisting paperclips from the desk into mangled, shapeless things.  _ If something happens, he’s going to blame himself, even though that’s completely illogical.  _ He saw the kid after Zoe. He can’t imagine what could happen this time.  _ Don’t go there. She’s gonna be alright.  _

Jack takes a deep, shaky breath. “Three minutes is up. Matty, we could use an update down here. There's a few people getting worried.”

Matty’s voice is shaking. “The plane's gone off radar.”

He can hear Bozer whispering in the background. “She did that on purpose. Right?”

“Riley's got this.” Jack wishes he felt as confident as he wants to sound. “Doesn't she?” 

“I don't know, Jack.” Matty’s voice cracks. “I sent her up there. I tried to protect her. And…”

“You did the best you could.” Jack takes a shuddering breath. “We all did.”

And then he can hear the faint chatter of something through his comms, coming from Matty’s end. “Denver Center, this is November-seven-two- two-five-four-Romeo. My engines are no longer over-temping. We are in the green and running fine. We'd like to cancel the emergency.”

Jack collapses into a chair. “She did it.”

Mac is trembling, and Jack reaches over to grab the kid’s hand. 

“Yes!” Jessie shouts, and she’s hugging Frank and jumping up and down. 

Jack laughs shakily. “Riley had this from the jump. There was no need to be worried. I wasn't worried. I can't believe you guys got worried.”

Jessie shakes her head. “Come here, tough guy. I won't tell anybody you were scared.” She pulls him into a hug. Jack can see that Mama Colton is crying silently, and Mac is still sitting limply in his chair. Jack stalks over to Beck as soon as Jessie lets go of him. The man is just coming around, blinking and shaking his head.

“Well, I hate to break it to ya, pal, but I think Riley Davis is a little harder to kill than you expected.” The man glares at him. “I think if I were you, I’d stay far away from her. Not that you won’t be in a cell for the rest of your life, but hey. Still.”

Mama Colton shakes her head. “Well, it seems every time we work with y'all, things just get completely out of hand. But Mama keeps making bank.”

Jack sighs, looking around at the zip-tied criminals. “Yeah, about that. Mama, we can't allow you to take them in and collect the bounty. I'm sorry.”

“Why not?” 

“It's a national security thing. But rest assured, the Coltons will get paid. You helped us find someone who's eluded us for years, and you took a big target off Riley’s back.” Jack looks down at his shaking hands.  _ She’s tougher than anyone knows. Keeps on cheating death with a smile on her face.  _

“You damn right,” Mama says. “And we will be collecting all bounties and rewards, plus incidentals, and a small finder's fee on top.”

“Always a "plus" with you, right, Mama?” Jack says. 

“That's right.” She grins at him. “Jessie, Frank, come on now. Let’s go. We know where to knock on the door if these folks don’t send us our check.” She shoots Jack a meaningful glance, and he nods, smiling.

As soon as the door shuts, he turns around and walks back to Mac. The kid’s just standing up, and he looks like he can’t decide whether to laugh or throw up. 

“I’m sorry,” Mac chokes out. “I didn’t stop the upload fast enough.” He swallows hard. “If I’d been faster, if I hadn’t been hurt…” Jack cuts him off. 

“Mac. No one is dead. Riley is fine, and so is everyone on that plane. Sooner or later, everyone makes a mistake, and it’s okay to not be able to do everything exactly right. It may have taken us a while to get this guy, but we did it.” Jack refuses to let Mac look away from him. “We always get them in the end. Because we’re a hell of a good team.”

“Jack, you’re acting...weirder than normal.” Mac is still shaking slightly, but he looks a little less likely to puke, which is a good thing. 

“Ah, man it’s just been a day. Ya know? We caught a guy that’s been a thorn in our side for years, Riley almost died but she didn’t…” He knows his bluff probably isn’t the most convincing. 

“Jack. Your eye’s twitching. I know you’re lying to me.”  _ Damn it, so he did learn that’s my tell. _ “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know, man. I guess I’m just...worried we’re all drifting apart, ya know?”

“Just because Riley’s considering relationships doesn’t mean you’re losing your place in her life, Jack.” Mac shrugs. “You’re the one who’s always acting like I’m insecure about how important I am to people, but you’re just as bad.” 

“I know, man. It’s just that everyone’s...doing their own thing now. Bozer’s got his girl, Riley’s dating what’s-his-name, or maybe Billy, God only knows, and you’re moping around thinking about your dad and his creepy stalker photos.” Mac’s eyes widen. “Yeah, bud. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you’ve been acting weird lately. So has Bozer.” 

“I’m just worried,” Mac mumbles. “If James is watching us like that, he might decide he doesn’t care if we’ve done anything to make him angry or not. He could attack whenever he wants to.” Mac twists a paperclip between his fingers, and the wire snaps. He winces, pulling his fingers away, and Jack watches red well up from a cut across his thumb and drip onto his white jacket. 

“That’s not your problem to fret about, okay kiddo?” Jack says softly. “If you wanna bring him in, we’re gonna do that with you. Knowing full well we’re putting our lives on the line. No different than any other op. Mac, just because he acts like this is going to be on you, doesn’t mean he’s right. He’s no different from any other bad guy we’ve ever gone after. They all wanna kill us. And not to brag, but we have a really good track record of us alive and them in jail.” 

Mac nods slowly, wincing when Jack pulls the handkerchief out of his suit jacket, douses it in alcohol from one of the wine bottles, and presses it to the cut. “Jack, I’m sure there was a first aid kit…”

“Hey, I thought you’d appreciate the improvising.” Jack gives the kid a small smile. “Mac, listen. Whatever you decide, we’ll support you. But you have to tell us so we can. Okay? You’re not alone anymore, and you know that. Don’t shut us out. We’re a family. Dysfunctional or not, you’re stuck with this wolf pack.” 

Mac grins, then reaches his uninjured hand into a pocket. “That reminds me…” He holds out something silver. “Took this off one of the guys we knocked out in that room. He won’t have much use for it where he’s going.” Jack takes the piece of metal from Mac and turns it over. It’s a thick silver ring, with the design of a roaring bear’s head on the front. “I know it’s not Beowulf, but…”

“Are you kidding me? This is great.” Jack slips the ring on his finger. It’ll need a little resizing, but he’s not about to tell the kid that right now. “I love him. Let’s see….he’s gonna need a good name.” Jack spins the ring around his finger. “Bruno?”

“If you wanna keep it literary, you could call him Beorn,” Mac says. “From Tolkien, and it even sounds a little like Beowulf.”

“Yeah, I like that. Beorn it is.” Jack grins. “Wait’ll I show Riley. She’s never gonna stop calling me a papa bear now.” He loops an arm around Mac’s shoulders. “Just don’t forget, your papa bear is always gonna be there for you too.” 

* * *

Riley breathes a small sigh of relief when the tac team arrives to collect Palmer from the plane. “Got a little damaged in transit, but he should be all right.” She shrugs. Palmer’s sporting a broken nose, which made his snoring even more unbearable for the rest of the flight. 

“Let's go.” The men pull Palmer away, and Riley heads back to her seat. She reaches down to grab her rig and gear, and all of a sudden, a lightheaded dizzy spell hits.  _ It’s all catching up with me. _ She almost just died. 

She nearly drops her rig, her hands are beginning to shake violently. She takes a deep breath, wishing Jack was here to put an arm around her shoulder, to reassure her. 

There’s a rattle of something in the aisle, and Riley looks up to see Billy pushing the plane’s drink cart toward her. 

“Hey,” he says quietly. 

“Hey.”

“So, the flight attendants left this for us. Their way of saying thanks for averting a massive disaster.” He takes a bottle for himself, and Riley chooses one as well. Then she sees what else is on the cart. A single red rose. 

“Where did you find that?” She asks 

Billy picks the flower up and twirls it between his fingers. “I'm a bounty hunter. I find things. Everybody on this plane owes you their life, including me. And I thought that should be…” he hands her the rose. “Appreciated.”

“Thank you.” Riley sets the flower beside her and lifts her bottle. Billy smiles. 

“So, here's to still being alive.”

“Here's to something unexpected.”

* * *

MAC’S HOUSE

THIS ISN’T A SMALL PARTY

Mac knows something was wrong when Jack asked him to go and pick up drinks. That’s always Jack’s job. Mac almost forgets that the red jeep parked in the driveway is his now when he leaves, with Jack yelling his and everyone else’s drink preferences out the door. Riley bought a smaller car last month, and she sold Mac her old jeep for a much better price than he’d get anywhere else. His old, beaten-up Impala, the first car he had after he got his license back, had been a side-of-the-road cash deal. No respectable car company will help finance a vehicle with a record like his. The fairly new jeep is a huge step up, and he knows he underpaid for it, but Riley insisted. 

_ It’s getting easier to accept that people can be nice with no ulterior motives, but sometimes it’s still so hard to believe.  _

It’s when he gets back and Jack doesn’t meet him at the car to grab everything from him and insist on him taking it easy on his leg that he really knows something’s up. He walks slowly to the door and opens it, then stares. Bozer’s just finishing setting a huge cake on the dining room table, and there’s a lot of people clustered around the dining room.  _ This is the closest to a surprise party that’s safe to have for a trained agent. _ Riley says she learned the hard way when trying to throw  _ Jack  _ a birthday party that surprises are a good way to get punched in the nose. 

“Jack! You promised this  _ wasn’t _ going to be a birthday party!” Mac insists, but he can’t quite stop the smile slipping out. 

“Dude. Come on, you believed me?” Jack shakes his head. “Does anyone here think that was a good idea?”

Mickey barks. “Of course  _ you _ trust him,” Bozer says with a chuckle. “He always sneaks you food when he thinks we’re not looking, and I know he’s the reason you think you can beg at the table.”

Jack grins. “Someone has to be the bad influence. Might as well be me, Matty already hates me for it.” She shakes her head at him, smiling, then hands Mac a slice of cake. “We didn’t put candles on it, we were kind afraid you might burn the place down with ‘em. The bonfire’ll have to do.” Jack shrugs. “Come on, kiddo.” He puts an arm around Mac’s shoulders and pulls him out to the deck. 

_ We needed this. _ Mac looks around the fire at Jack and Riley, Bozer and Sam, Jill and Diane, Penny and Matty and Patty. Jack was right, they’ve been starting to slide away from each other. Letting themselves retreat into their own little worlds full of their own problems.  _ We’re a family, we shouldn’t have to keep those kinds of secrets. It’s the one place we should feel safe telling the truth.  _

He excuses himself for a moment and steps inside.  _ If I hadn’t left then, I would have blurted everything out.  _ And he can’t afford to do that. He can’t get them killed.

“Hey, Mac, you alright in there?” Jack asks. 

“Yeah, just getting seconds on the cake. Anyone else want some?” Mac asks. He turns and looks back out at the group clustered around the fire.  _ They can’t know. They can’t know until it’s done.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure whether there will be a new chapter next week since I'm in the middle of moving into a new house, but if not next week, 219 will definitely go up the week after that!


	20. Benjamin Franklin+Grey Duffle

###  219-Benjamin Franklin+Grey Duffle

TEN THOUSAND FEET ABOVE GROUND

THIS IS NOT HOW ANYONE EXPECTED THEIR DAY TO GO

Riley takes a deep breath and wills her hands to stop shaking. If she drops her phone right now, she’s never going to get it back. “Current ground speed 40 miles an hour. Altitude: 10,200 feet.”

She turns sideways, hearing Mac’s harsh breathing getting louder in her ears. He’s lying flat on his back, hands clenching and unclenching against the black material underneath them. “Riley, please stop using the word "ground." It's making it hard for me to think.” 

“He's afraid of heights,” Jack says. Riley already knew that, but she’ll forgive Jack the unnecessary commentary right now.

“I'm the one who almost died in a plane crash last week.” Riley refrains from saying the rest of what she’s thinking. That it really sucks that  _ that _ seemed safer, actually, than what they’re doing now.  _ At least in that situation I had some control.  _

Unfortunately, Jack  _ does _ say it. “This is a totally different situation. You're on a trampoline tied to a bunch of balloons. This is probably the end.”

“Guys, I am trying to think.” Mac sounds upset, but the kind of upset that’s bordering on tears. He’s panicking, so he’s getting angry, because it’s either be angry or start crying. Riley’s been there herself often enough to know. 

“All right, well, your thinking is what got us into this situation in the first place.” Jack shrugs as much as he can without tipping them all over. 

“Yeah, but his thinking is what probably saved our lives. We're lucky we even got out of there.” Riley was totally willing to take her chances in the air rather than be shot to death by a bunch of very pissed off arms dealers with very large guns. Now, she’s not so sure about her choice of options. 

“Lucky?” Jack asks sarcastically. “The very definition of  _ unlucky _ is being in a situation where the only way out of it is to recreate something you saw in a kids' movie.” 

Riley glances at her phone again, then stares at the worrying readings on the screen. “Guys, we got a problem.”

“You mean another problem, put it on the list.”

“Wind's changing direction, it's really picking up. We're heading towards the ocean.”

Mac’s voice is barely more than a whisper. “Wind speed will continue to increase as the air thins and we approach the jet stream.” 

“Well, that means we got to get down. Like, right now.” Jack glances at Riley. She shakes her head slightly. She has no clue what they need to do. That’s Mac’s department. She just hopes he’s thinking clearly enough to figure out what to do. 

“Got any ideas, Mac?” She asks quietly.  She doesn’t want to stress him out more, but he’s the only one who can save them.  _ Please, Mac, tell us what we need to do. You can do it.  _

Mac is shaking, panting. “G-get rid of b-balloons. Pop them, not c-cut them loose.” 

“Okay, kid, we can do that.” Jack pulls out a tac knife, pulls down a couple strings and slashes through the balloon plastic. The trampoline tilts, and Mac gasps and curls up in the fetal position on the trampoline, and Jack sighs, reaching over to put a hand on Mac’s shoulder in reassurance. Riley’s only seen Mac this scared a few times, and it hurts every time. She can’t imagine how it feels for Jack. “Aw, man, sorry.” 

“We have t-to cut...both sides...at once.” Mac pants out. Riley nods and pulls out one of her own knives, starting to release the balloons on her side. The trampoline starts to sink.

“Enough! Enough!” Mac gasps out suddenly, still curled up and shivering. “We’re going down, that’s enough!” Riley nods. They need to cushion their fall as much as possible, and the slight buoyancy the balloons give right now should help. 

“We’re gonna get down from here just fine, okay, kiddo?” Jack says. 

“Yeah, we’ll be alright.” Riley twists her fingers into Mac’s. He keeps his eyes squeezed shut, trembling.  _ Please don’t have a panic attack, not up here. _ She breathes in and out carefully, hoping Mac copies her. Jack is humming softly, tunelessly, but it’s a strangely soothing sound. She can feel the knot in her own stomach loosening just a little. 

She watches her phone as they descend. They’re getting close to ground level, Riley can see the tops of a few trees whizzing by. She risks a glance over the side and swallows hard. They’re coming down over a forest.

Jack must have done the same thing, because as she rolls onto her back again, so does he, and his eyes when he looks at her are worried. “It’s gonna be a bit of a bumpy landing, okay?” Jack says, his voice gentle. “Just hang on, Mac.” Mac is still curled up, but he clutches Jack’s hand a little tighter and nods. And then there’s a terrible jolt and Riley feels herself falling.

They’re closer to the ground now than she was expecting, it’s not much worse than some windows she’s jumped out of on ops, and the ground is definitely softer than the concrete she normally has to land on. Still, despite her best tuck and roll, she impacts something hard, a tree root or a rock, and her shoulder explodes in pain. But if she’s in pain, she’s not dead. She smiles wryly at Jack’s voice echoing in her head as she pulls herself to her feet. 

_ Jack. I have to find him and Mac.  _ She turns a full circle, but they’re nowhere to be seen.  _ Maybe they didn’t get knocked off when I fell.  _

Riley groans as she starts walking in the direction the trampoline was flying. Her shoulder is definitely dislocated.  _ If this happens too many more times I’m gonna end up like Jack. _

She steps out of the edge of what looks like an orchard, into a small open area of a farm. There’s a barn directly in front of her, and there’s also someone standing near it, someone in tac gear that she instantly recognizes. 

“Jack?” When he turns and sees her, she can see the relief on his face even from a distance. 

“Ri, you okay?”

“Little banged up and my shoulder’s out, but nothing I can’t live with.” Jack has a deep bruise on his cheekbone, and he’s limping, but she doesn’t see blood or visible broken bones. “Where’s Mac?”

“I don’t know. We hit that barn roof, and it threw me off the side. He was still hangin’ onto that trampoline like a drownin’ cat,” Jack says. 

“Let’s go find him.” Riley shuts out the images of Mac falling, breaking his back or neck, or of him being impaled by a tree. She can’t think about that right now.  _ He’s going to be fine. He’ll be alright. _

“There’s the trampoline!” Jack says. Riley can see its landing site, the few brightly colored balloons still attached are like a homing beacon, even though the trampoline itself is buried in grass. It’s in the center of an idyllic looking pasture, and there are several very scared cows along the fence, snorting and twitching their tails, watching the balloons flutter. Riley remembers the ranch stock at Jack’s house spooking and tearing out a fifty-foot section of the electric fence when a wayward hot air balloon tried to set down on the open ranch land. At least these ones were stopped by the wooden bars.  _ I’d hate to have to explain to a French farmer why we’re responsible for a stampede.  _

“Mac?” Jack calls. He has to be somewhere close. Riley doesn’t see anything dangerous between the barn and the trampoline, aside from the cows. 

There’s a muffled, muttered curse, and a strange sucking sound.  _ What? _ Riley follows Jack over a small hill between them and the trampoline, and then sees what was previously hidden by the grass. The trampoline didn’t come down in the meadow, it came down in the small, algae-covered  _ pond _ in the meadow. And Mac is half in-half out of the water, but incredibly hard to see, since he’s covered head to toe in brown mud and green algae.  _ Well, if he’s going for a new form of camouflage, he’s found a winner… _

“I hate this plan.” Mac stumbles to his feet, shaking his head, and Riley steps back as sticky mud flies  _ everywhere _ .

“Geeze, hoss, you smell like the barn back home,” Jack mutters, exaggeratedly holding his nose. “And for the record, it was  _ your  _ plan.” Mac slogs up the hill, mud and water dripping off his clothes and hair. “And you _look_ like the creature from the Black Lagoon, kiddo.” 

“ _ Not _ funny, Jack.” Mac grumbles. “I just want to go somewhere and get this  _ off _ me,  _ now. _ ”

Still, Riley snaps a few surreptitious pictures.  _ Hey, Bozer and Sam will want to know what they missed out on. And Matty will never let him hear the end of it. _

* * *

JACK’S APARTMENT

HE HOPES HE CLEANED

“So Mac just asks, ‘have you ever seen that movie  _ UP _ ?’, and of course I have, it’s my nephew Evan’s third favorite animated movie.” Jack shakes his head, watching Diane’s confusion.  _ Damn it’s nice to finally be able to tell her things. _ He can’t share all the details, but Matty gave permission for this one.  _ And it’s a GREAT explanation for why date night is two days overdue. _ “So I say yeah, and then I see him looking at the balloons, and I know he’s gonna do something really stupid.”

“You flew away from the guys chasing you by using a bunch of balloons tied to a house?” Diane asks. “Jack, this sounds like one of your really bad excuses again.”

“Not a house, a trampoline. And Riley has photographic proof,” Jack says. “I’m gonna have to tell her to never show those pictures to Evan or he’ll try it.” He grins, unlocking his door. Or attempting to. It’s already open.

_ Aw Mac, what’s goin’ on now? _ Jack’s noticed the kid’s been taking advantage of his key privileges a lot more often lately. He guesses nightmares have been bad.  _ Probably James. _ “Hey, Diane, I think we might need to take a rain check on that drink.”

“Don’t stop on my account.” Jack freezes. It’s a woman’s voice. A blonde who’s just standing up from Jack’s couch.

“Jack?” Diane asks in a small voice. “Who is she, and what is she doing _ in your apartment? _ ”

“I don’t know what she’s doing here. But this is Dawn, and she’s  _ supposed _ to be working for the CIA.” Jack practically growls. “And I can’t think of a single reason the CIA needs to break into my place.”

“I didn’t know where else to go. Someone killed my handler and I’m afraid they’re going to try to kill me next.” 

Jack sighs, running his hands through what little hair he has left. If it’s not grey by morning, he’ll be shocked.  _ Of course she’s in trouble. _ He has the feeling Dawn, if that’s even her real name, is definitely not the kind of person trouble avoids. Maybe she put her foot in it this time, maybe not. But the fact remains, she’s about to drag him into a mess again. And seeing as the last time he saw her, she nearly got him barbecued alive,  _ accidentally, but still, _ he’s not too sure he wants to get into this. He whispers to Diane to wait in the hall and then closes the door. If whatever this is is bad enough to kill for, he doesn’t want her involved any more than she already is. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. I can’t figure out what anyone would have wanted to kill Paul for.” Her eyes are wide and fearful, and Jack knows this is no con. He knows what real fear looks like on Dawn’s face. 

“Okay. Well, listen, we’ll take you over to Phoenix and Matty can set you up with round the clock protective custody until we figure it out. Okay?” She nods. “Now can you let me talk to my date for a minute? In private.”

Dawn nods, picking up a half-finished glass of something dark from the table. Jack walks back into the hallway, where Diane is standing arms crossed, tapping the toe of one shoe against the worn carpet.  _ Oh, this looks so bad. _ It would have served him right if she’d gone downstairs, taken her car, and left, and never wanted to talk to him again. But she’s still waiting.  _ Either she’s gonna give me a chance, or she just wants to scream at me before she goes. _

Jack meets her eyes as sincerely as he can. “Listen, Diane, there’s nothing going on between her and me. She helped us out on a case a while back and we cut her a deal so she didn’t go to prison. That’s all. I don’t know why she came to me, or how she knew where I lived. CIA I guess.” 

“Jack.” Diane puts a hand on his cheek, stopping any continued protests. “I know when you’re lying to me. And I know you’re not lying now.” She glances toward the door. “You were as shocked to see her as I was. Maybe more. You weren’t hiding her here, and if there was anything between you, it’s over.” She smiles. “For a secret agent, you kind of suck at hiding things.”

He shakes his head. “That was a low blow, Di.” She laughs. “Still, we’re gonna have to take a rain check on drinks and  _ Die Hard _ . I gotta take Dawn into Phoenix and get this sorted out.” 

Diane nods. “Rain check it is.”

* * *

PHOENIX WAR ROOM

DAWN IS NOT THE ONLY ONE IN HERE WITH A CHECKERED PAST

Mac can’t say he’s got all that many warm feelings for Dawn. Thanks to her, Jack almost burned to death in a coffin, and that’s not something Mac’s planning on easily forgetting. 

Still, he thinks he could forgive that, if it hadn’t been that everything Dawn was doing was for her own personal gain. Mac’s used to their job putting their lives at risk. And he knows, despite Jack’s eternal protests, that sometimes it is his fault they almost die. Like yesterday and the ill-fated trampoline incident.  _ But when I do it, I’m trying to help people. That’s why we go out there every time. _

He knows it’s not quite fair, but he just can’t get past that little bitter place in his mind. He knows it wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for what’s happened to him over the past five years.  _ I was just trying to do the right thing, and I paid for that with so much misery. And then there are people like her, people who risk other people’s lives for a profit, and she got a deal and walked away.  _

He tries not to think about that too much, it’s just frustrating and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Sometimes the good guys suffer and the bad guys get away with it, that’s the way the world works and Mac learned it the hard way many times over. He knows life isn’t fair, knows it better than almost anyone else. But Dawn was almost responsible for  _ Jack’s _ death, and that, Mac can’t bring himself to look past. 

_ It’s just a job. You signed on to sometimes protect people you don’t like or agree with. _ Because as much as people can piss him off sometimes, no one deserves to die for it. Whether it’s Dawn or a foreign dignitary under threat for some of his policies. Mac’s guarded people who are far less moral than a con artist. He shakes himself out of his thoughts and back into the briefing. 

Dawn is fidgeting in the front of the room, her normal collected poise totally gone. If it was anyone else, Mac would feel sympathetic. He tries to now. “After Director Webber arranged for me to work with the CIA instead of going to prison, the Agency assigned me to the L. A. field office, had me creating cover identities. My supervisor was an analyst. His name was Paul Carter.”

“Is there a reason you're referring to him in the past tense?” Matty asks. 

“Yesterday Paul was killed in a car accident.” Dawn glances at the room full of confused faces, Mac’s included. “According to the local news, he was driving double the speed limit on a narrow road and flipped his SUV. But I don’t believe it. I think someone murdered him.”

“What makes you say that?” Cage asks. Mac was surprised to see her in the War Room for this op, but he guesses they wanted someone on hand to vet Dawn. He just doesn’t like the way Sam’s attention seems to be wandering to him.  _ I’m not the one on trial here. _

“'Cause the day before the crash, Paul told me he found evidence that someone was creating fake passports to bring people into the U. S. without the CIA's knowledge, and that someone was an agent.” 

Matty watches the woman carefully, Mac is familiar with that calculating look, even though it’s been over a year since she’s had cause to scrutinize  _ him _ like that. “That's a pretty serious accusation. Did it happen to come with a name?” 

“No. Paul was still working on that, which is why I told him not to blow the whistle yet. He wanted to go to his superiors and inform them right away, but I told him not to say anything until he knew who he was accusing.” 

“That’s what I would have said too,” Jack says. “Going around slinging accusations without proof is a good way to get demoted to the filing offices. Or fired.” 

“Well, then, we both would've been wrong, because Paul listened to me, and the next day he was dead.”

“So you think this agent, whoever it may be, killed Paul to shut him up?” Riley asks. 

Dawn nods. “And I can't help feeling like, if Paul hadn't listened to me, he might still be around right now.” She shivers. “And if they find out he told me anything…”

“You’ll be next on their hit list,” Cage finishes cooly, as if she’s said something about the weather.  _ Guess when you’ve got over a dozen bounties on your head, it’s another day at the office _ .

Mac frowns and shifts, tucking the paperclip question mark he’s just finished into his pocket.  _ It could all be an elaborate lie. But what does she stand to gain by it? _ Dawn didn’t immediately give them a name, or even a suggestion; this isn’t some personal vendetta. And she seems genuinely fearful.

Matty clears her throat. “Dawn. Would you please give us a minute?” She nods, and Jack walks her to the door. Mac can hear him saying something in his reassuring spooked-horse voice, and he fights back the stab of jealously at Jack using that for someone else.  _ It doesn’t bother me with Riley, but Dawn doesn’t deserve that from him.  _ And then he feels ashamed for thinking it.  _ I of all people shouldn’t think someone has to earn the right to be cared about.  _

“So? What's our first move?” He asks as Matty soundproofs the windows, trying not to think about the green-eyed monster he’s shoving back into the dark where it belongs.  

“Honestly? Figuring out if we can believe that story or not.” Matty glances at the screen. “I’d like to think she is, but I don’t see a shred of evidence to confirm it.” 

“Matty. You of all people know how good the CIA is at making things look like an accident.” Jack’s hand has slid toward where his gun normally is. Mac wonders how many times Jack himself was the one behind a convenient accident.  _ He’s too good at that kind of thing to not have done wetwork at some point in his past. _ Maybe before Riley, but still. “They could buy off the cops, hell, if that car was new enough, someone like Riley could take over it and leave no trace when it was all done.” 

“The report is clean,” Cage says, studying it with a frown. “Almost too clean for my liking. Accidents are...accidents. They’re messy.” Mac wonders if this one is hitting close to home for her, what little he knows of her darker past ends with a car run off the road into a river. She could easily have met the same fate as Carter. If that’s what really happened. “And she’s genuinely afraid. I’d be willing to stake the op on that.”

Riley nods. “That’s good enough for me.” She glances at Matty. “I can see what I can dig up from some of my old contacts. I’ll be discreet.” 

Mac feels like the odd man out in the room, he’s the only one without CIA background.  _ I have nothing to offer. _ Maybe he should go join Bozer in the lab and let the others handle this op. And then Jack turns to him. 

“Mac, you been awfully quiet back there. What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know.” Mac doesn’t like being put on the spot like this. “I don’t know why she’d lie about this, but I just don’t trust her.”

Jack doesn’t look angry or like he wants to argue. “Okay, kid, what’s eatin’ you?” Mac tries to ignore Sam’s mind reader stare locked on him.  _ She probably already knows how I feel. _

“She didn't just have a change of heart, she was facing serious jail time when we caught her. This job is the only way she avoided a cell.”

“In case you forgot, kiddo, that’s how we got you, too.” Jack rests a hand on Mac’s shoulder. “Are you sure these issues with Dawn aren't personal?”

Mac swallows. “Can I talk to you alone?”

Jack turns to the others. “Guys, we need a minute.” Matty nods and ushers Cage and Riley out. Jack turns back to Mac, his eyes deep pools of worry. “Kiddo, whatever’s going on, tell me now.”

“She almost got you killed,” Mac blurts out. He knows better at this point than to beat around the bush with Jack.  _ Keeping one secret from him is bad enough. I can’t keep more. _ “When it comes right down to it, the only person she looks after is herself. I don’t think she’s lying. I just don’t think we should rely on her.”

Jack gives Mac a lopsided smile. “Man, trust me, I am not counting on her to have my back. That’s what you and Ri are for.” He shrugs. “I don’t have to trust her with  _ my _ life. But I’d like her to be able to hang onto hers, ya know?” 

Mac nods.  _ I feel like such a selfish jerk.  _ Jack’s just trying to help someone, and Mac should be happy about that. He gives Jack a forced smile. “Then I guess we’re all good. As long as you think she’s telling the truth.”

“I think she's being honest. I think she has good instincts, and if she says there's something rotten in the CIA, it wouldn't be the first time, not by a long shot.” 

Mac nods, remembering Khan. His ankle twinges with the thought. “All right, then. Now what's our first step?” 

* * *

CIA OFFICE: LOS ANGELES

JACK DOES NOT HAVE FOND MEMORIES

Jack stares up at the outside of the building that houses the LA branch of the CIA. “I never thought I'd have to set foot back in this pile of bricks. I broke my leg back in 2010, in Botswana, and they put me on injury leave. And by "injury leave," I mean Matty chained me to a desk and made me do paperwork for three months. It was the worst experience of my life.” Jack might be exaggerating, just a little. But he doesn’t miss his days with the CIA.  _ Not that I didn’t work with good people. But I like Phoenix a whole lot better.  _

“I’m sorry for dragging you into all this. I really am.” Dawn says, the words stumbling over themselves. 

“Listen. It’s not a big deal to me. Friends don’t let friends get killed by nameless moles. Or break into government offices alone.” 

“Is that what we are, Jack?” She asks. Jack gets the feeling that, rather like a kid he remembers from not so long ago, she’s not used to having real friends.  _ Playing outside of the rules makes that a little hard.  _

“Yeah. We are.” They’re not more, but he doesn’t think that’s what she means. She saw him with Diane yesterday. 

“Even after everything that happened in New Orleans?”

Jack nods. “Yeah.”

“So you worked here?” Dawn asks in a whisper as they continue down the hall. 

“Yeah. I didn’t know  _ you  _ did.” Jack glances in her direction. “You were right here in L.A. Why didn’t you ever let any of us know?” 

“I didn’t think you’d be too happy to see me. Any of you.” She glances at him. “I didn’t exactly make a good first impression on your team. Or you.”

“I’ve learned not to judge people by first impressions.” He can’t forget what he did to Mac because all he saw was a convicted terrorist. “You’re alright in my book, okay?” She gives him a weak smile. And then that smile vanishes altogether when they reach a door marked “Paul Carter.”

Jack hands Dawn the lockpick kit he smuggled in in his jacket. “Okay, Dawn, I'll stand guard, you get the case files off his computer, yeah?” She nods, walking to the desk. And then she swallows hard, shoving her fist against her mouth. Jack freezes, on high alert already.  _ What did she find? _

Jack walks over to Dawn’s side of the desk. There’s a photo there, and it’s of the man Jack saw on the screen in the War Room. Except that here, he’s got his arms around a boy and a girl, and there’s a smiling woman leaning on his shoulder. Jack sighs.  _ Never gets easier seeing the aftermath. Wondering what their lives are gonna be like. Wondering how badly we screwed their lives up. _ Sure, this isn’t his agency anymore, but a part of him is always going to feel a kinship with these agents. 

He’s cleaned out too many lockers and offices in his day. Seen too many pictures like this. Had to call too many wives or husbands or kids or brothers or sisters to tell them someone is never coming home again. He doesn’t envy Matty that responsibility now. 

This is definitely Dawn’s first.  _ You always remember the first one.  _ Jack’s was back in the Army days, a cheerful, slightly off the wall guy who liked to talk horse racing and horror movies.  _ Warren Jenkins. _ He and Jack had both been the new guys, they’d bonded over that. And then they breached a building on bad intel. Jack got shot three times; he almost died on the medevac chopper. Warren got hit once. He wasn’t so lucky.  _ I felt like somehow, it was my fault. Like if I’d just let him go first like he asked, he might have made it. Like if he hadn’t tried to come in after me and help me, he would have been alright.  _

Jack puts a hand on Dawn’s shoulder. “Hey. Hey, listen to me. The best way to help his family right now is to find out what really happened. Agreed?”

Dawn nods, eyes shimmering with tears. “Yeah.”

“Yeah. Now, do your thing.” Dawn turns on the computer, opens it to the lock screen, and types something into the password section. Jack was expecting there to me a little more Riley-type stuff involved. “You know his password?”

“I might have seen him type it once and memorized it accidentally.”

"’Accidentally’?”

Dawn shrugs. “Old habits.” The computer opens to a home screen, and Dawn shakes her head. “No, no, no.” 

“What?” Jack asks, but he already thinks he knows. This looks like one of those display monitors at a computer store. It’s been completely reset. 

“There's nothing here.”

“The case files are gone?” Jack watches Dawn open up the file library. There isn’t a single folder in it. 

“Everything's gone. Somebody must have wiped his hard drive.” She types faster. “And the backup. I can’t even find his account on the main servers.” Jack remembers that from his own CIA experience. He’d accidentally selected more files than he intended to before deleting one. Jack was sure he’d just lost five unsent reports (and that Matty was going to kill him) until Riley took pity on him and showed him how they autosaved to the office’s main servers.  _ Of course, she never let me live it down. Said I ought to make the screen zoom bigger because I was an old man and needed glasses.  _

“Well, that's not suspicious at all.” Jack mutters.  _ This wasn’t an accident. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make sure that whatever Carter was working on never saw the light of day.  _

Dawn sighs. “That means we have no evidence.”

“Well, not necessarily. We'll send this stuff to Riley, she's always going on about how you can't actually delete something. We'll just put her to the test.”

“Well, I'm all for it, but the security's not gonna let us carry some agent's computer out the front door.”

“Did I say anything about the front door?” Jack switches on his comms. Someone will notice the outgoing signal, but they’re leaving now anyway, so it doesn’t matter anymore. 

“Riley, pull the van around to the back...and get ready for a large file transfer,” Jack chuckles.

“You absolute nerd.” 

“Oh, you know you love my obscure TV references.” He nods to the window. “Alright, let’s get outta here.” 

* * *

Riley hasn’t worked on CIA hard drives in a while. Phoenix is small staffed and can go in for top of the line new tech, unlike the bigger agencies. She thinks this hard drive might be the same exact model as she was using before she and Jack transferred.  _ It’s like looking through a family photo album and seeing those pictures of yourself with braces. _ Some people are nostalgic about certain smells or songs. Riley is nostalgic with operating systems and hardware.  _ This takes me right back to the CIA days.  _

She looks up to see everyone else in the War Room watching her work.  _ Right. Time to stop reminiscing and get busy.  _ “Okay, well, first off, Dawn was right. Someone deleted this hard drive two hours and 14 minutes before Paul was killed. Supports your theory.”

Matty nods. “Yeah, but it's still a long way from hard evidence or even actionable intel.”

“Oh, I’ve got plenty more.” Riley grins. She knows all the ins and outs of this particular model. “Whoever tried to erase this hard drive didn't know the difference between a delete and a true wipe, sort of like you, Jack.” She winks at Jack, who glares at her. She’s never let him forget that time he deleted a bunch of his reports by accident. “I can still recover a lot of this.”

“So they were smart enough to take everything off the main server, but they left files on the hard drive?” Mac asks. 

“Maybe they got interrupted,” Riley suggests, still working her way through the recoverable data. “You can remove files from the server with any administration access. I could have hacked in and done that when I was still working there. But the hard drive would have to be cleared at the actual computer. And they might have been about to do that and got spooked, heard someone coming and didn’t want to get caught in the office.” 

“Well, that’s good for us, at least,” Bozer says. 

“Very good. Because…” Riley makes a few more keystrokes and multiple images pop up on the War Room screen. “Jackpot.”

“You found the fake passports.” Dawn gives her a small smile. Riley returns it tightly.  _ As long as she doesn’t put Jack in danger again, we’re good. _ She knows what it’s like to be desperate and want an out in life.  _ If I hadn’t gotten caught, who knows where I would be? _ She and Dawn are more alike than she would ever want to admit.  _ We only took those CIA deals to save our own skin. But Jack helped me really  _ want _ to turn my life around, for more than avoiding prison time. He made me want to be a good person. _ She hopes he can be the same influence on Dawn. 

“It means you were right about what Paul was onto.” Mac says it almost grudgingly.  _ It’s like he wanted Dawn to be lying. _ Riley can understand why, Mac was on the ground in New Orleans when it all went to hell, he was  _ right there _ when Jack almost died.

But they don’t have time for old wounds right now. “Yes, forty times over.”

“What?” Dawn is visibly shocked. 

“Did you know that there were this many?” Bozer asks. 

“Paul didn't share much detail with me.” Dawn said. “He told me it was better that way. I think maybe he knew...knew that someone would come after him for this. Him and anyone else who knew.”

Riley pulls up a set of documents. “According to his case files, he just started tracking these people down, hoping one would lead him back to "Echo”.”

“Who's Echo?” Jack asks.

“It looks like that's the code name Paul gave that dirty agent he was hunting.”

Matty’s voice is stiff when she speaks up. “Okay? You know what, I've seen enough. You were right. Paul was onto something big, and someone killed him to cover it up. Now, I want to know who this Echo is, and just what the hell is going on.”

Riley nods. “Yes, ma'am.” 

* * *

TWENTY MILES FROM REDMOND, OREGON

IT’S BEEN A QUIET CAR RIDE

Jack is grateful for the buzz of comms in his ear as Matty feeds him consistent updates and asks for them to do the same. 

“Okay, Matty, Mac, Bozer and I are about 30 minutes away from the current address of Caroline Grant, or whatever her real name is. Riley and Dawn are on their way to Nebraska.” So far, Riley’s only got two current addresses, one for the woman they’re about to meet, and the man living in Lincoln, Nebraska, supposedly named Robert Kemp. They decided that it was best to divide and conquer.  _ One senior agent on each team. _ And Jack wasn’t about to let Mac out of his sight. The kid’s been even more on edge than usual since Dawn showed up. 

“Okay. Be safe out there. Remember, we have no idea what these people were being brought into the US on fake passports  _ for. _ ” Jack nods, frowning. They could be dealing with anything from terrorism to trafficking. 

Matty signs off, and Jack glances over his shoulder into the back seat. For once, Mac isn’t riding shotgun, and it feels strange to see Bozer in that seat. Mac is sitting in the back behind Bozer, making something out of paperclips, and staring out the window occasionally at the scenery. He reminds Jack of the sulky teenagers in the beginning of cheesy feel-good movies who don’t want to move to the country. 

Bozer glances at Jack. “Is it just me, or is Mac acting super weird?” he whispers.

It doesn’t look like Mac is listening to them. “Yeah,” Jack says. “I think he’s not very fond of Dawn.” That’s the understatement of the year, but Jack doesn’t want Mac’s opinion to color Bozer’s view of the woman. 

“I mean, I don’t know exactly what happened, but you came back from New Orleans with burned feet and smoke inhalation, and Mac had really messed up his hands. I can see why he’d be pissed.” 

Jack nods. “I was hoping the three of us going without her might snap him out of it, but I don’t think it’s working too well.”

“Mac is funny like that. He can hold grudges for a long time. There was this guy who was always rude to me in tenth grade, and Mac was always pulling pranks on him, random sciency stuff. I’ll never forget the time he opened his locker and it started filling up with some kind of weird smelly foam. Mac kept doing stuff like that until the guy moved away.” 

“That sounds...not much like the Mac I know.” Jack’s sort of glad, because otherwise he probably would have been dealing with weird pranks like this for the first two months he knew the kid. Then he feels guilty, remembering  _ why _ Mac lost that playful side.  _ Now he just turns inward. _

“Yeah, he’s different now.” Bozer shrugs, and Jack wonders if the guy’s thinking the same things Jack is.  _ It’s a wonder he’s not more broken than he is, after everything. _

“So, how’s Leanna?” Jack asks in an effort to defuse the rising emotion. 

“I don’t know. She went on assignment in Tampa last week, deep cover. She can’t contact me.” Bozer shrugs. “It’s the life, and that’s her thing. She loves undercover work.”

“Then you two are perfect. You make the masks, she gets to use them.” It took a while to get used to the idea that Bozer had given up on his massive crush on Riley and actually found someone new. Possibly even longer than it took him to accept that Riley and Billy are ‘talking’.  _ Riley’s words. Billy full-on calls it dating. _ Jack knows the guy’s trying to be serious about commitment, but he’s concerned that that’s more than Riley is ready for right now.  _ She’s taking things slow on purpose. She dove in headfirst with Nick and got burned.  _

Still, it’s not Jack’s place to interfere in his kids’ love lives. Both of them seem to be happy and that’s the most he can ask for. And long distance dating is the name of the game for spies. He’s just glad Diane gave him a second chance, and he has to remember to meet her when this is all over, or he might be in the doghouse again. 

His phone pings, the GPS indicator alerting him that they’ve arrived at their destination. Jack glances at the others. “Alright, you guys ready for this?”

* * *

LINCOLN, NEBRASKA

THIS NEIGHBORHOOD LOOKS VERY UNLIKELY TO BE A CRIMINAL HOTBED

Riley parks the car a little less than a block away from their destination. “Okay, here we are. The home of one Robert Kemp...or whoever he is.”

“So he’s lying about his name. That doesn’t immediately make him dangerous.” Dawn says, watching Riley’s hands as she removes the safety catch on her gun holster. “Maybe whatever those passports are for is to protect these people somehow.” 

Riley can’t say she hasn’t had the same thought. But any doubts about that went over a ravine with Paul Carter’s SUV. “This isn’t like we’re busting a WitSec guy or something.” Riley frowns. “Someone in the CIA killed one of their own to cover this operation up. If that agent was ever trying to do a good thing, he isn’t anymore.”

“Still.” Dawn worries at her fingernails with her other hand, chipping off bits of maroon polish. “This guy might not be dangerous.”

Riley nods. “I’m not going in guns blazing, Dawn. If these people on the passports are being exploited, I’m not going to hurt them.” She can’t help but think that this is some kind of trafficking ring.  _ People being brought into the country with fake papers, they could end up being threatened and exploited. It happens far too often. _ “I don’t want to do more to damage people this “Echo” has already used for his or her own ends. But the best thing for them, in any case, is to get them out of this.” 

“You’re different than most people who do this job,” Dawn says. “In New Orleans, I watched my share of trafficking busts. And a lot of times, the cops treated the victims like they were just as guilty.”

Riley nods.  _ It’s often runaways and illegal immigrants that people prey on, because those people have nowhere else to turn, and because when they get caught no one wants to listen to them. _ “I know what it’s like to be lost, to be looking for anyone who can help. And I know that no matter what else someone’s done, they don’t deserve to live as a slave. And...and I know it could easily have been me.” Her obsession with the dark web was actually what kept her from just running away from home altogether.  _ I saw too much on there. I knew what would probably happen to me if I left.  _

Dawn nods. “You and I are more alike than I thought.”

“I guess.” Riley bites her lip. “You ever think about running away from home, taking your chances out there?” 

“Well, depends on which of the fourteen homes we're talking about. I grew up in foster care.”

“Sometimes, I used to think that would be better.” Riley says. “Elwood, my dad, he used to knock Mom around. Sometimes me too. And even after he left, she had nothing but shitty boyfriends.”

“Sometimes it wasn’t bad. Sometimes families really tried. But most of them had too many kids and not enough time. And some of them just wanted us to work for them.” Dawn shrugs. “But when you're a kid, you just you make the best of what you're given.”

“Yeah.” Riley glances at her scarred knuckles, from the time she broke her hand punching one of Mom’s boyfriends and had to have surgery.  _ Granted, I was already an adult then, but I still felt like a little kid. And I couldn’t deal with it anymore. _

“I learned to fit in with whatever family got me. How to be what they wanted, not to make trouble. Guess I got started as a con woman when I was about ten.”

“Yeah, Elwood taught me how to break into cars around then too. Ended up with a juvie at twelve for grand theft auto.” She shakes her head. “The closest most kids my age got to that was the video game.” Elwood’s still laying low, still scared of James. She called him a week ago, just to check in.  _ He’s paranoid, and part of me thinks he’s just getting what he deserves for making me and Mom afraid of him for so long. _

“Alright, let’s go.” Riley climbs out of the car and starts walking, Dawn right behind her. She checks the house numbers until she finds the right one, and starts up the sidewalk. And then a gunshot cracks the stillness of the neighborhood and Riley hits the cement, grabbing Dawn’s shoulder and dragging the older woman down with her. She grabs her phone and calls Jack. “Shots fired! Get out of there! Get out now!”

* * *

Bozer always thought it was cheesy when spies showed up to break into places dressed as exterminators or janitors. But it’s actually proven to be a pretty effective cover ID. He adjusts the brim of his Central Gas Corp. hat and glances at Mac and Jack. All three of them are wearing green coveralls and carrying random items. Jack’s toolbag hides his gun. 

Mac takes point, knocking on the front door of the house their mystery woman lives in. “Hello?”

A woman who matches the picture in the fake passport opens the door. “Can I help you?”

Mac gives her his best disarming smile. “Hi, ma'am, sorry to bother you. We're with the gas company. Our system detected a Grade 2 leak in your home.”

The woman glances behind her. Bozer wonders what she’s looking for. Or who. “Really? I haven't smelled any gas.”

Jack shrugs. “Most people don't, ma'am. Not until it's too late. May we come in?” The woman nods, and all three of them step into an entryway. It’s a bit crowded. 

“So, Ms. Grant, are you the primary contact on your gas bill?” Bozer asks. 

A tall man steps out from what looks like a combined kitchen-dining room. “No, I am.”

“This is my husband, Eric.” Bozer watches Jack take the man’s hand and shake it firmly, and he follows the guy’s belt around to where something tucked below his shirt shifts as Jack continues with the over-enthusiastic greeting.  _ Jack’s checking his hand for calluses.  _ But Bozer can already see that the guy’s carrying.  _ This isn’t good.  _

Mac shifts a bit nervously, he must have seen the gun too. “Nice to meet you. How long have you guys been, uh, living at this address?”

“Uh, two years? Shouldn't the gas company know that?” Eric asks. 

Bozer chuckles and tries to cover for them. “Company merger. We had incompatible databases and a bunch of customer info got scrambled like an omlet.” 

Jack’s phone buzzes in his pocket, and he steps aside, pulling it out. “That’s the office, I gotta take this. Hold on a sec.” Bozer watches him walk over into a hallway, his fingers are tapping the back of the phone the way they do when he’s really worried. Mrs. Grant’s phone pings, and she pulls it out, looks at the text, and shows it to her husband just as Jack hangs up. 

Jack walks back to them, hand moving nervously toward where his gun is stashed in his work bag. “So, gas company gave us the wrong address, so we'll just be going-”

It happens so fast Bozer almost misses it. Eric pulls his gun out, Jack shoves Mac and Bozer sideways into the living room, and Bozer hears the pop of multiple shots fired.  _ What the hell was that? _

Jack’s firing back. “You two, get to cover  _ now. _ Anyone hurt?” 

“No,” Bozer shouts back, his ears are ringing. He doesn’t trust that Mac’s ‘no’ is genuine. He crawls on hands and knees toward the entrance to the kitchenette, following Mac. Mac’s not leaving a blood trail on the carpet ahead of him, so Bozer takes that as a good sign.  _ If he is hit, it’s not bad. _

Jack follows them in, checking his belt and cursing when he realizes his extra mags are in the bag he dropped in the hall when he pushed Mac and Bozer out of the line of fire. “Mac, I think this would be a good time to use that big ol’ brain of yours.”

“Bozer, is there cooking oil or dishsoap or soemthing in one of those cupboards?” Mac asks. 

Bozer throws the closest door open. “Will Extra Virgin olive oil work?”

“Yeah, that’s fine. Just start pouring it on the floor,” Mac says. He’s opened another cupboard and is pulling out several heavy metal saucepans.

“So are you gonna set something on fire, dude?” Jack asks. 

“No. Just gonna disorient them a little.” Mac piles the pans as fast as possible. 

“Well, you better hurry up, cause I’m runnin’ outta ammo and Bonnie and Clyde here don’t seem to have the same problem.” 

“Okay, when I say, shoot this bowl.” Bozer sees that Mac’s set all the pans on an upside down ceramic casserole dish. 

“Oh, I get where this is going,” Jack says, grinning. “They run toward the crash, we pop ‘em off.”

“We knock them out,” Mac says, rather vehemently.

“That’s what I said, dude.” Jack ducks behind the fridge, and Mac huddles under the edge of the kitchen island. Bozer grabs one of the extra saucepans and tucks himself behind the door.

“Now!” Mac hisses, and Jack fires. The pots fall with a crashing clatter, and Bozer sees the couple rush inside the kitchen, then slide, reaching out for the countertops and anything else to hold them upright. Jack tackles Eric into the countertop, but Caroline, who was behind him, seems to have realized what's going on and gets her balance back. She's still loose, and armed. And she’s about to head straight for Mac. 

Bozer reacts on instinct. He dives out from behind the door, bringing the saucepan down hard on the woman’s arm. She yelps and drops her gun, and then Bozer whacks her in the head. She crumples to the floor. 

Jack lays his own guy out with a right cross and turns to Bozer, who’s still standing over the woman with the pan in his hand.  _ I can’t believe I did that. I just knocked her out. _ “Not bad, dude,” Jack says chuckling. 

“It always works in the movies.”  

Jack’s phone rings again, and he pulls it out. “Ri? You okay?” Bozer can tell the man is internally freaking out. Riley almost died in a plane crash a little more than a week ago, and now she’s gotten pinned down in a firefight. 

“Yeah, all good here. Guy’s a heck of a bad shot.” Riley’s voice is clearly audible. “I’ve got him tied up in a chair with a bullet in his shoulder. Sounds like you guys have things under control?”

“Yeah. We had a couple here. Guy wasn’t one of our passport dudes though. At least not that I recognized. I’ll send you a picture.” Jack snaps a photo of the unconscious man, Mac is tying him up with the cord from the electric mixer. He’s already got the woman restrained with a dishtowel. “So what happened out there?”

Riley sighs. “I think he saw Dawn. Guess whoever gave these guys their passports put out a BOLO on her.”

“Which means now she’s definitely in danger too.” Mac stands up.

Bozer can hear the phone changing hands, now Dawn is speaking. “Well, we're tearing this place apart and still haven't found anything yet. And Mr. Kemp seems a little unwilling to answer any questions right now. How about those two on your end?”  

Jack hands the phone over to Bozer and starts opening cupboards and drawers. Mac is pulling seat cusions off the sofa. On the other end of the line, Bozer cna hear what must be Riley doing the same thing, there’s a muffled thud and crash, and then her saying something to the house owner. He can only assume it’s snarky. “All we know for sure is, they didn't want visitors.”

Dawn takes a deep, slightly shaky breath.  _ Yeah, getting shot at doesn’t get brushed off as easily for some of us.  _ He can feel his own heart still racing. “Yeah, well, there's something here, something we're missing. Because any common criminal knows that nine times out of ten, running is a smart move. These people stayed to fight. That means they're protecting something.” 

“And the question is what?” Jack turns to Eric, who’s started to wake up, groaning. “Huh, hey, what you hiding there, bubba, huh?” 

“Jack!” Mac shouts from the living room.

“Yeah, hoss?” Jack turns toward him. “What?” 

“This slug, it hit something, but it's halfway between the studs. There shouldn't be anything behind this but empty space.”

“Well, whatever it hit, Mr. and Mrs. Armed and Dangerous over here didn’t want you to see it.” 

Mac pulls out his knife and pops the bullet out of the wall, it clatters to the floor. He swtiches to his saw blade and begins cutting into what looks like a thin piece of plasterboard.  _ Spent a summer helping my uncle gut a flooded house in Alabama to flip it. That’s defintiely not up to code wall material.  _

Jack grabs the phone back from Bozer. “Riley, check inside the walls.”

“The walls?” Riley asks. “That’s a lot of area, unless you want me to start shooting them up and see what stops a bullet.”

“Look for patched edges,” Bozer suggests. “Where the paint is feathered in. Weird brushstrokes, a color that doesn’t quite match, anything out of place.”

“There’s a section behind the sofa over here,” Dawn says, and then Bozer can hear both the women grunting softly as they move the piece of furniture. 

Bozer helps Mac pull away the section of the wall, and as the plasterboard crumbles, he hears Mac draw in a shocked gasp. Jack almost drops his phone. 

“There's got to be at least ten million bucks here.”

There’s a thud from the other end of the phone, and Bozer guesses Riley skipped the saw and went for the boot-assisted approach. He can hear her and Dawn gasping slightly. “Holy mother of…” Dawn whispers. 

Mac pulls out a stack of bills. “All in hundreds. Along with the bags to transport 'em in.”

Riley’s voice comes in again. “Hey, wait, did you say hundreds? All we have here are stacks of ones.” Bozer hears paper flip. 

“What kind of psycho tries to kill someone to protect a bunch of singles?” Jack asks. 

“Because they're not protecting what it is now, Jack. It's what they’re going to be.” Mac separates one of the hundreds from a stack and holds it up to the light. “I think this is a counterfeiting ring.” 

“He’s right,” Riley says. “See, the hardest part about faking U.S. currency is getting the paper right. Best counterfeiters know that they use industrial strength bleach to remove the ink on one-dollar bills and then they reprint them as hundreds.”

“Do I want to know why you have such a deep knowledge of counterfeit bills?” Bozer asks. 

“Let’s just say Elwood had some very...artistic friends. And unlike most artists, their work made them a lot of money.” 

Jack shakes his head, Bozer can tell he’s resisting the urge to say something about Riley’s dad. It’s the look he gets whenever anyone brings up James MacGyver. “And I bet a couple of fake passports that's not happening in the U.S. These guys must be sneaking real ones out of the country, then smuggling fake hundreds back in.”

“One way to find out.” Mac is muttering to himself and dumping chemicals into the sink. 

“Dude, that’s not gonna gas us or something, right?”

“Not if you open some windows.” Jack and Bozer scurry to do just that. 

Mac takes a pair of salad tongs and dips the hundred into whatever solution he’s just made in the sink. When he pulls it out, the ink that made Ben Franklin is gone, and Bozer can just see the faint mark of George Washington underneath him. 

“Well, that's something you don't see every day,” he says weakly.

“Nope. All these hundreds are fake.” Mac looks at Jack. “Whoever Echo is, they killed Paul to cover up a counterfeiting operation.”

* * *

CIA OFFICES

MATTY REMEMBERS WHY SHE LEFT

Matty Webber still commands respect in the CIA. The minute people see her coming, they move out of her way. Even if they don’t know her personally, it’s clear to anyone who sees her that she’s a woman on a mission. 

But there’s a lack of personality here. The chain of command is much stronger, and if anyone speaks to her at all, it’s with a reverent ‘Ms. Webber’ instead of someone passing her in the hall and shouting ‘Matty’. 

_ Jack and Riley never really fit in here. _ They were too individualistic. Which is why she recommended them both for transfer to the fledgling DXS.  _ Not _ because, as Jack still seems to believe, they almost blew their last mission in Chechnya.  _ If it was about their competence, they’d still be here.  _ One bad op isn’t worth firing someone over. But Matty knows that here, Jack and Riley would never have become the kind of agents they are now. Riley certainly wouldn’t be as confident, she wouldn’t be a senior agent running her own ops. And Jack would probably have gotten himself court-martialed.

Matty fit in here longer because she can play the game. Because she’s good at being a chameleon, at hiding the unacceptable pieces to be liked and trusted. But in Phoenix, she can be herself. She can care about her agents, look after them personally.  _ I would never come back here. _

She walks directly past the receptionist outside the Deputy Director’s offices. The kid at the desk, who can’t be much older than Mac, protests nervously. 

“Excuse me. You can't go in there without an appointment.”

Matty ignores him and pushes the conference room door open. She ignores the flustered chatter from the half-dozen people in the room and goes straight to the man at the head of the table. “Hi, Julian.”

Julian Halsey at leasts has the sense to see that Matty means business. “How about we take a break, people? Pick this up after lunch.” He nods to Matty. “Why don’t we take this to my office?” 

Julian sits down at his desk, and Matty glances around the room at the spare, minimalist decoration and the items from the man’s global postings. “The corner office suits you. Happy to see one of the good guys winning for a change.”

“Come on, Matty, we both know this could've been your office if you'd wanted it.” She does know it. But she’s not sorry she chose a different path. “So what brings you by?”

“I will bet you a case of whatever cheap blend you're serving guests these days that you know exactly why I'm here.” She smiles. “And a bottle of the single malt you keep hidden in your desk that you've been expecting me all day.”

“Well, it was brought to my attention that someone let themselves into Paul Carter's office and stole his computer.” Julian shrugs. “Imagine my surprise when I got this,” He turns his desktop monitor so she can see a still from security tapes, “and saw a familiar face.” Jack is clearly visible. Matty raises an eyebrow.  _ If I really wanted to keep this under wraps, Riley could have dealt with the cameras in seconds.  _ But her team isn’t the ones in trouble. Not really.  _ Because if he takes this to his supervisors, they find out what Jack and Dawn were here looking for. _ And by now, if everything is going according to plan, the teams in Oregon and Nebraska have a decent amount of evidence in hand. 

“How is Dalton these days?” Julian asks.

“The same.”

“Sorry to hear that.” She remembers that those two were never really on each other’s good side. “He was signed in by the cooperating expert you convinced me to hire. A clear violation of her deal that could lead to serious jail time.”

Matty’s been calling his bluffs for years, and this time is no different. “Come on, Julian. If you were gonna run this up the chain, you would have done it by now.”

“I figured I owed you a chance to explain. So, what's this about?” 

Matty accepts the glass Julian hands her. “I believe that someone in this office may be responsible for Paul Carter's death.”

“Wait, you think that Paul-” 

“I do. I'm here to expose a corrupt operative, Julian, and I need your full cooperation. Starting with the classified dossiers of everyone in this office.”

* * *

THE GRANTS’ HOUSE

JACK IS AVOIDING FUMES OUTSIDE

Mac claims his little bleach concoction is harmless, but Jack’s not so sure he can take the kid’s word for it. He hustled both Mac and Bozer outside and did a cursory check for bullet wounds at the same time. He trusts Bozer to tell him if he got shot, but Mac is a different story. Thankfully, the kid doesn’t seem to be injured. 

“Now what?” Bozer asks. “We know these bills are being shipped out of the country to be printed, but where are they going?”

“Well, I tried searching the passports to see where they’d last been used, but I’m coming up with nothing,” Riley says. “They’re CIA issue and serial number, which means they’re able to be flagged and removed from the databases as a security precaution, like our own used to be.” Jack sighs. Sometimes it’s very helpful to be able to erase an agent’s travel path. Now, it’s just another headache.

“I’m going to see if I can get around that, but I’m not sure I’ll have much luck. We’re bringing Kemp back to Phoenix to see if Cage can get him to cough up what he knows.” Riley hangs up. 

“How ‘bout we talk to a certain other money launderer we know?” Jack calls Oversight. “Hey Patty, where did we put that Ralph Pastrami guy?”

“Kastrani.” Patty sighs. “Why?”

“We need a little of his less than legal expertise.”

“I’ll give you the number for his burner phone that only we can use to contact him.” Patty says. “It’s  _ supposed  _ to only be used in case of emergencies, but I think we can consider this a necessary exception.”

Jack dials the number, and it’s picked up on the fifth ring. 

“Hey Ralphie, how’s it going, man?” Jack asks, forcing himself to sound cheerful. 

There isn’t so much as an answering hello before Ralph starts complaining, predictably. “Please tell me you guys aren’t going to make me move again. I just repainted the walls in my condo so they’re not hideous anymore.” Jack shakes his head.  _ This guy… _

“No, you’re not going to have to move. We need a little help on a case, and you’re the only money launderer I know off the top of my head.” 

“Dude, does this mean I get to be an official consultant now? Is that like...legit?” Ralph sounds so excited, and Jack shakes his head.  _ He was a punchface guy for sure, but he was also like a little kid. Wanted to play spy so badly.  _

“Sort of. But it’s top secret, so you can’t tell anyone, okay?”

“Dude, this spy business sucks. What good is saving the world if you can’t impress the ladies with it?” Jack shakes his head, thinking of Diane. “Okay, fine, I won’t tell anybody. What do you need?” 

“Anything you know about large shipments of counterfeit bills coming into the country and getting laundered.”

“Not ringing any bells, dude. Lotsa people asked for accounts and stuff to hide their ill-gotten gains. Although I always give everyone the same advice.” Jack tunes out the economics jargon and tries to get the guy to focus.  _ He’s lucky this is a phone call. Otherwise I’d punch him. _

“This would have been big. As in millions getting shipped in every week or month, and it’s printed on real U.S. currency paper.”

“Oh man.” Ralph’s voice has gone quiet. “They never came to me, didn’t need to. Currency like that’s basically guaranteed to pass. But toward the end of my time in the States I was hearing rumors about a huge operation that sounded a lot like that. And it sounded like someone in the government was involved. Someone who could cover it all up.”

That meshes with what they know. “Did you hear anything more?”

“Not really. It came through a business associate of mine. He kept saying this was gonna be our big break, and I told him I already had enough I was working on, didn’t need anything that had the feds involved like that. It gets sticky real fast when they got fingers in the pie.” Ralph takes a deep breath. “I told him to take it somewhere else. That’s all. But it was happening out of the country, somewhere in South America. Said he’d been down there to see the operation, and it was real legit. And then two days later he was killed in a car crash. I told him anything the feds were mixed up in was bad news. That’s why I stay clear of all that crazy stuff.” 

“Thanks, Wreck-It Ralph.” Jack looks at the others. “Well, it sounds like whatever this is, it’s a whole lot bigger than we thought. And Paul isn’t the first one ‘Echo’ killed to keep the operation secret.” 

* * *

Mac thinks Bozer is much too excited about this whole thing, seeing as he almost died a couple hours ago. He and Jack are all laughs when they roll a cartload of counterfeit bills into the Phoenix lobby. 

“All in a day's work, folks.” Jack is grinning like it’s  _ his _ money.  _ I hope he knows this doesn’t count as finders keepers.  _ Jack likes to joke about things like that, but sometimes Mac isn’t exactly sure he’s kidding. 

Bozer is only encouraging him. “Nothing to see here, but I do hope you packed an umbrella today 'cause I'm about to make it rain up in this…” 

Matty cuts them both off. “No smiling till we catch the counterfeiter.”

“Whoa, Matty, what’s with that mood?” Jack asks. “Who can frown with this much money around?” 

“It isn’t real, Dalton. And besides, you won’t be smiling either when you hear what else Riley dug up.”

“What’s goin’ on now?” 

“More bad news. According to Paul's file, he suspected there were at  _ least _ 40 more fake passports he couldn't find yet.”

Mac sighs. “So, even if we busted everyone that we know of, there'd still be more people out there muling fake money.” 

Jack glances down at the piles of money. “And unless Cage can crack one of the Three Stooges, we’re still no closer to figuring out who’s running this thing.” 

“That's true. But we didn't fly out all these fake Benjamins just for a fun entrance.” Mac grins at Bozer, sometimes his friend’s wacky esoteric movie knowledge pays off. “We may not be able to figure out who’s behind this, but thanks to our old friend Ralph and some of the lab’s high-tech gadgets, we might be able to figure out where this phony money's being made.”

“Good.” Riley steps out around the corner of the hallway, shoving a cuffed, gagged man in front of her and sporting a bandage around her upper arm.

“Ri…” 

“You can scold me for not telling you I got hit later. It’s not even that bad.” She shrugs, then hands her man over to a member of one of the tac teams. “Take him down to Cage, she’s probably already in interrogation with the guys Mac and Jack and Bozer brought in.” She walks over, Dawn trailing behind her, and looks down at the money. “And I thought seeing those stacks of singles was impressive.” 

Jill is similarly shocked when they wheel the cart into her lab. “A gigantic stack of hundred-dollar bills? For me? Guys, you shouldn't have.” 

“Don't get too excited. It's all fake,” Jack says. “Otherwise, do you think we’d have come back?”

Mac shoves his shoulder. “ _ But _ the paper these fake bills are printed on is real, which I'm hoping will give us a lead.”

Bozer nods, rubbing his hands on his jeans. “See, U. S. paper currency is one of the dirtiest things on the planet. The cotton and linen blend attracts and holds pathogens for a very long time.”

“Like, how long?” Riley asks.

Bozer grins, and Jack facepalms. He had to listen to the plot of Bozer’s apocalyptic outbreak movie the whole drive back to L.A. “See, the flu virus can last forty-eight hours outside of the human body, but on money, seventeen days.” 

“Well, that's disgusting,” Riley says. “Okay, from now on, I'm only using credit cards.”

“But it’s great for someone who wanted to spread a killer virus,” Bozer says.

“Or,” Mac jumps in before they get the whole script in cliff notes format, “Finding a killer who is very much human. This stuff has been shrink-wrapped since it got shipped.” 

“So it's been holding germs from the place where it was printed?” Riley guesses. Mac nods. 

“Meaning we can use microbial forensics to analyze the pathogens and find clues to its geographic origin.” Jill sounds way too excited. Mac can already tell Bozer is going to be bringing his script to work next week for her to read.  _ They can go be Pandemic nerds. Actually they’d probably be good at that game. _ Mac played it once and died. 

“That's the idea. And we have a basic location, somewhere in South America.” Jack says. “I kinda still want to punch Ralph. Can we pay him a personal visit?”

“NO.” Matty shakes her head at him. “All right, nerds. Get to work.”

Mac works on one of his projects while Jill studies the money. Bozer is scribbling more ideas for his killer virus movie on a notepad, this particular brand of inspiration is the one that’s going to have him convinced he’s got the next blockbuster for a solid week. Mac’s pretty sure he’s going to be the test dummy for Bozer’s latest makeup experiments for oozing sores.  _ Always fun. _ Riley’s working on some kind of programming, and Jack is hovering somewhere between Mac and Dawn, like he’s not sure who to talk to. 

It’s a relief when Jill finally speaks up. “All right, based on a specific blend of fungal species, pollen, and human parasites found on the sample, cross-referenced against our regional database of glycoside hydrolases, I went through and-” 

Matty cuts her off. “Uh, Jill, nobody but possibly Mac understands any of the words you're using.”

“Right. Sorry. I'm just really excited.”

Matty shakes her head. “Okay, be excited with smaller words.”

“Long story short, there were several locations’ residual dirt on your bills; some of these guys were real travelers, and I'm guessing some of the people who handled them were too. But knowing that we were looking for someplace in South America narrowed it down. I was able to get matches on eighty percent of the bills I tested. Your fake money was made in or near Lima, Peru.”

Matty looks over at the team. “Mac, Jack, Riley, Dawn, get your asses to Lima.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

* * *

EN ROUTE TO LIMA

THIS IS AN UNCOMFORTABLE PLANE RIDE 

Jack leans over Riley’s shoulder. “What are you working on here? That’s one heck of a boring in-flight movie.” 

“Since we know the operation's running out of Lima and every money mule carries the same gray duffel bag, I hacked into Lima's airport security cameras to look for more because if we find one…”

“We can track the bags back to the fake money that's being minted.”

“Exactly.”

“So you're just sitting here watching the bags?” Dawn asks. 

“No. I'm running a custom video-image processing algorithm that looks for the bag's exact same shade of gray. So the computer's doing the watching for me.” Jack is consistently amazed at what Riley is capable of. 

He leaves the two of them to talk. It seems like they bonded on their little near death experience in Nebraska.  _ At least one of my kids likes her.  _

Mac is sitting in a corner, playing with his paperclips again. Jack sighs when he sees one that looks like handcuffs, and another that closely resembles a prison watchtower.  _ Aw kid. _ Jack can feel the pieces of the puzzle sliding a little more visibly into place. He sits down next to Mac and picks up one of the twisted wires.

“Me almost gettin’ barbecued in the Big Easy isn’t the only reason you have it in for Dawn, is it?” Jack says gently. 

“I don’t have it in for her. I just don’t trust her,” Mac says defensively. 

“I think you’re jealous.”

Mac blinks. “What?”

“Come on, man. Maybe you won’t even admit it to yourself, but it hurts seeing me take another ex-criminal under my wing, right?”  _ I may play dumb, but I’ve always been good at reading people. And I know Mac too well not to know whatever’s going on with him.  _ “Listen, Riley went through the same thing when you first came along. Felt like she was gettin’ replaced.” Jack smiles. “But just because I’m helping someone else doesn’t mean I don’t still care about you just as much as I ever did.” 

Mac just shrugs. “I don’t think you’re replacing me.” But there’s no real conviction in his voice. And once again Jack wants to punch James in the throat for leaving this kid with a mountain of abandonment issues and an inability to even verbalize them for fear of being seen as weak. 

“Good, cause I’m not.” Jack knows the kid just said that to make Jack think he’s alright. He’s so far from okay right now it’s almost laughable. But Jack doesn’t push him. “When all this is over, she goes back to her job at the CIA, or whatever she’s gonna do next. And you and I get to go home and eat pizza and watch one of your weird documentaries on sea slugs.”

“When did I ever make you watch a nature documentary?” Mac asks.

“Lotsa times. Granted, you were kinda loopy from painkillers or fevers so maybe you don’t remember that.” 

“Oh.” 

“I still think that one about deadly Australian wildlife was arguably scarier than one of Bozer’s horror movies. And I don’t know how Cage is still alive.  _ She’s  _ scary.” 

Mac shakes his head, starting to grin a little. “She survived Murdoc, the world’s deadliest assassin. I think she’s got funnel-web spider and stingray covered.” 

Jack doesn’t want to think about Murdoc too much. The guy’s gone to ground, they haven’t seen anything more of him since he left Fletcher’s body.  _ Maybe we disappointed him by not taking the bait. _ They’d purposefully kept Mac away from the Murdoc investigation, and Jack’s willing to be the man knows that.  _ It’s no fun to him if he doesn’t get to torture the kid, physically or mentally. _ But Murdoc changing his game plans makes Jack even more worried about what might be coming.  _ That psycho will stop at nothing to get what he wants.  _ Jack just hopes he can be there waiting with a loaded gun next time.

* * *

Riley’s phone chimes. It’s a text from Billy. She shoots him a quick answer and then sets the phone aside, to see Dawn watching her curiously.  _ There’s no privacy on this plane, is there? _ “So, Billy Colton, huh?” Dawn says.

“You know him?” Riley asks.

“By reputation. I worked the same areas as their little bail bonds agency for a while.” Dawn frowns. 

“Something wrong?”

“Just watch yourself, sugar. Billy’s a sweet talker, I hear he likes playing the field, if you know what I mean.” Riley bites her lip.  _ It’s not like I blindly trust him. And I’m not even ready to say we’re dating yet.  _ Still, the only person allowed to question her love life is her. And maybe Jack.  _ As much as I hate to admit it, he makes a good parent.  _

“Just because you’re a con artist doesn’t mean everyone is.” Riley says shortly. “But trust me, I’m not throwing myself into this thing.”

“Because you’ve been lied to before.” It’s a statement of fact. “Everyone on this team is hiding something.” Riley doesn’t like the change of subject, because she has a feeling she knows who Dawn’s next interest is going to be. “Jack’s not being too forthcoming with what’s up with Mac there.” She nods toward him. “I already know he’s done time, probably someplace pretty serious. That’s not county-lockup kind of issues.” 

Riley glares at her. “Why don’t you keep your nose out of our business?”

Dawn just smiles. “And that right there tells me a whole lot more than you wanted it to. You weren’t even that defensive about me talking about your boyfriend.” She reminds Riley, in a way, of Cage, and it’s both disconcerting and also a little familiar and reassuring. “Something happened, and part of you blames yourself.”  _ Bishop is always going to be the biggest screw-up of my career. Bigger than Nick, bigger than Nepal.  _

“Listen. What Mac’s issues are are his own. He’s had enough people pry into his life, and I’m not sharing his secrets with anyone. It’s not just because it’s  _ you. _ ” Riley shrugs. “I wouldn’t have told my own mother if it hadn’t been necessary.” She looks up at Dawn. “I get that you’re not used to playing with a team. I wasn’t when I started. But the thing about teams is, you have to trust them. And they have to be able to trust you.” She glances back at the screen. “Mac will tell you anything when and if he’s ready to. And until then, don’t go prying.” 

Dawn nods slowly. 

Riley’s computer chimes insistently. “Guys, I got a shipment coming into Peru. I'm gonna task a satellite to track it from the airport till we land.”

Fortunately, they’re less than ten minutes away from landing themselves. There’s a CIA issue sedan in the parking lot, Matty must have pulled some strings. Riley once again has a stab of nostalgia.  _ Not that I really miss the CIA days, but that’s where I grew up. It’s like going back to your old hich school. _

As soon as she’s inside, she pulls up her rig. “Okay, guys, I'm still tracking our money mule on satellite. He's in a blue SUV. Take the next right.”

Jack does, and a few turns later their blip is right behind the sattelite image of their mule. “He should be just a few car lengths ahead.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I got him.” Jack glances at Riley in the rearview. “You know, the traffic is starting to thin out here. A few more turns, this guy is gonna realize he's got a tail.”

“So why don't we just let him go and watch him on satellite?” Dawn asks.

Riley sighs.  _ I wish.  _ “Unfortunately, we can't. It was really hard to find satellites in the area.

The one I'm borrowing is gonna be out of range really soon.” 

“So, if we can't follow him and we can't track him on satellite, how is he gonna lead us to the money mill?” Dawn asks. 

“I need somebody's phone.” It’s no surprise that that comes from Mac. 

“Dawn, give him your phone,” Jack says.

“Why me?”

“Because you’re new. And because you bought three of ‘em with my money. Or Duke Jacoby’s.” Jack chuckles.

“I’m not going to get it back, am I?” Dawn says, but she hands over the phone without any more protest.  _ We’re trying to save her life, least she can do is sacrifice her phone to the cause.  _

Mac grabs the phone, then glances around the car. “Anyone got any gum?” 

“I might have a breath mint,” Dawn says, fumbling in her purse. 

Jack shakes his head.“Yeah, I don't think he's worried about fresh breath right now. Unless, is your breath kicking, man? You got bad breath?” 

“No.” Mac sounds somewhere between amused and exasperated. “I'm gonna stick this phone on the SUV when we get close enough when he stops at the next light.”

“Thought so.” Jack takes one hand off the wheel and fumbles through the pockets of his jacket, producing something wrapped in paper. “I don’t have any more left with foil on ‘em, haven’t since Lagos. Really need to get some more of those. Good thing you didn’t need the foil.” Riley shakes her head. Jack is always keeping random stuff for them in his pockets. In theory, he has a couple small candies for her, although he seems to eat them himself more often than not. And he has a whole pile of assorted junk for Mac to use. 

Dawn glances at the car in front of them. “Mac. He's stopping.”

“Get out,” Jack says, throwing the vehicle in park. 

“Well, unlock it.” Mac is tugging on the back handle.  _ Oh no, I forgot the CIA cars don’t automatically unlock the back as well.  _ They’re designed to be prisoner transport as well, with the simple addition of a lock-in set of bars between the front and back seats. And the back doors are only unlocked from the driver’s seat. 

“Oh right.” Jack fumbles under the steering wheel. “Aw hell, they moved the button on me!” He slams a hand on the wheel in frustration. “That’s not fair, man!”

“He’s leaving!” Dawn says. 

“Okay, we’ll get him at the next light. See if any of y’all can find an owners’ manual in this thing and tell me where the damn unlock button is!” 

Riley pulls up her rig, maybe she can get the specs for the vehicle off the CIA database, but she can hear something behind them. Sirens. She looks up to see a pair of police vehicles approaching fast. 

“Jack, we got company, and I think it’s for us.”

“What, now it’s illegal not to know how to unlock your own car? This vehicle is CIA issue, man, shouldn’t even be in their databases. Maybe they’re after our money mule too.”

Riley shakes her head as a third car shoots out of a side street and cuts them off. “Nope, they’re definitely here for us.” She closes and locks her rig, no one but her is getting their fingers on it now. 

Jack finally finds the unlock button, and all four of them climb slowly out of the car. Mac is shaking, face pale. Riley wants to put a hand on his shoulder to reassure him, but then he’s being yanked away from her, slammed up against the car with a thud that makes  _ Riley _ wince. 

“Looks like we lost our mule,” Dawn mutters.

“ _ Yo no entiendo,” _ Jack insists, trying to talk to the officer cuffing him. “Amigo, what did we do?” Riley can see him looking at Mac the whole time.  _ He just wants to get us out of this mess and keep Mac from having a panic attack right here.  _ But Riley doesn’t think they’ll be able to talk their way out of this one. 

“We didn't do anything, except make Echo nervous,” She says quietly.  _ It’s the only way they’d be able to access this car’s license number. Someone in the CIA turned us in. _

“Who is this guy?” Dawn asks. 

“Whoever he is, he called the cops on us, which means he knows we're here,” Jack mutters. 

Riley’s eyes flick from Mac, cringing as he’s shoved against the car and cuffed, to Dawn. The woman’s eyes meet her own, and in that second, Riley knows.  _ She knows exactly what happened to him. None of us even had to tell her. _

* * *

PHOENIX LABS

CONSIDERABLY LESS EXCITING THAN THE FIELD. ALSO WITH LESS GUNFIRE

Bozer can’t say he’s sorry he’s not on the team on the ground in Peru. He’s been shot at enough for one day. But Matty staring at his work over his shoulder is arguably more scary.

“How we doing, Boze?” 

“I'm almost done inputting the search criteria into the program Riley wrote to narrow down our suspect pool.”

“Good, 'cause it's one hell of a suspect pool.” Matty taps a foot on the floor, like her fidgeting will make the computer work faster. 

“Okay. The program's crawling through dossiers looking for any agent who spent time in Peru, worked on a counterfeiting case or has had any unusual bank transactions in the last year. With any luck this'll give us Echo's real name.”

“Great. Then I'm gonna nail them to the wall.” Bozer can feel his eyes widen. Matty is usually a calm kind of scary. But the vehemence in her voice is the kind that’s usually Jack’s. 

“This one hits home for you, huh?”

“Most of my career was spent working at the CIA, Boze, and the thought of someone using the power of the Agency to hurt other people makes my blood boil.” Bozer almost feels sorry for whoever this program turns up. 

“You ever miss working there?”

“Sometimes.”

“Why'd you leave?”

“I owed Thornton a favor.” She glances at Bozer. “And I liked the idea of working with an agency that was more flexible.”

“I gotta admit, you scared me at first,” Bozer says. He doesn’t think he’s been this forthright with Matty since...well, since she first came. And he told her off for not trusting Mac. “I thought you were going to kick Mac out. Send him back to prison.”

He watches her fingers tighten on the back of the chair. “I’ll be honest with you, Boze. I might have, at the first. All I saw in him was his father.” She sighs. “Back then, the only thing the name “MacGyver” meant to me was a dangerous former agent that the CIA couldn’t manage to put one finger on, a man who was wreaking havoc on the world just because he  _ could _ . A man who just up an decided to use his talents for evil one morning. And I thought like father, like son when I saw Mac’s record.” 

“It’s still hard for me to believe,” Bozer says. “I knew his dad was a world-class jerk but I never would have thought he was a master criminal. And then I got pulled into this world and that’s almost normal. It’s not even the craziest thing I’ve seen this month.”

“Do  _ you _ regret it?” He already knows the answer to that.

“Not for one minute.” At first, coming here was in defense. Of himself, of Mac. Trying to salvage a fragile status quo. And there are days he wonders if he should be here. But he knows this is where he belongs.  _ A couple years ago, getting shot at would have paralyzed me. But a few hours ago, I knocked out a dangerous killer with a frying pan. _

The computer pings,and Bozer glances at the screen, where a set of dossiers have appeared. “And then there were eight.”

“Send me their files. I'll go interview them.”

“Hold that thought, Matty. Might be able to narrow down this list even further.” Bozer continues typing. He’s picked up a few tricks watching Riley work. “Riley said Paul's computer was wiped by someone physically in his office, right? Who was in the building that day?” 

When the names flash up on the screen, Matty pulls out her phone. “Julian, I've got three suspects: Pedro Alvarez, Sarah Felts, and Damon Marlow. Put them each in a box and let them marinate until I get there.” Yeah, Bozer definitely feels sorry for whoever the guilty party turns out to be. 

* * *

HOLDING CELL

IT’S NOT A SUPERMAX BUT IT’S JUST AS BAD

Mac shivers as the door clangs closed. It’s not cold in this cell at all, in fact it’s so hot and humid that the sticky air, reeking with sweat and urine and stale cigarette smoke, feels like a physical weight pushing down on him. 

_ Hands holding him on the floor, keeping him from struggling and squirming away… _ Mac blinks, forcing the terrible memories back into a box.  _ You can’t afford to freak out now. You’re already vulnerable and if you start panicking and having flashbacks you don’t stand a chance. _

Jack called Matty, she’ll get them out soon. He just has to hold on until then. 

He moves a little closer to Jack, even though physical contact with  _ anyone _ is making his skin crawl. He’s not alone this time. Jack is going to protect him. He avoids looking at the other men in the cell with them. He learned a long time ago that eye contact is a bad idea. He watches feet and hands instead. They’re what can hurt him. 

Jack steers them both over to a grubby bench near the door. The wood has been repaired quite a few times, and the chipped black paint hasn’t fully disguised bloodstains. It’s probably been the weapon in more than one drunken brawl. Mac shivers. The holding cells here aren’t separated, every kind of criminal is in here together. 

He doesn’t know what happened to Riley and Dawn, and he hopes they’re not being offered some kind of ‘deal’ in order to be let go, by someone who will be angry if they refuse. He’s pretty sure both of them can probably hold their own, but a corrupt cop will have backup and what law there is on his side if he tries anything. 

_ You can’t help them. Worry about what’s right here, right now.  _ Which is a cell with almost a dozen strangers. Most of them are keeping to themselves, thankfully, but there are three bigger guys in a corner, with cartel tattoos on their arms, and Mac’s noticed that they’ve moved so they have a clear view of him and Jack.  _ The kind of people who take what they want because they’re the strongest ones in the room.  _ He knew plenty of guys like them at CCI. There’s a snoring drunk and a guy who seems obsessed with a crack in the wall between them and him, but Mac knows if these guys want to, they’ll be at his and Jack’s throats in seconds. 

Jack slides an arm around his shoulder. “Hey, kiddo, Matty’s gonna fix this. She’s gonna get us outta here, okay?” Mac just nods. Jack is talking softly, his mouth close to Mac’s ear, so the other prisoners can’t hear him, and Mac hears the cartel guys start talking. He can’t hear much over the drunken ramblings and snoring from some of the other prisoners, but it seems like they’re saying something about Jack and whether it’s worth it.  _ They think he’s got prior claim on me. _

Mac doesn’t care if they think he belongs to Jack. Whatever keeps him safe in here is far more important than his pride.  _ Besides, I’ve already actually belonged to a gang. Faking being someone else’s bitch isn’t even really that degrading. _ He knows if Jack catches on the man will deny it vehemently.  _ But if he does that, he’ll make me fair game for them.  _ Mac knows exactly how this works. He can’t let Jack realize these guys’ mistake.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t have much of a choice. The biggest of the men walks over and stands deliberately in front of Jack, who gets to his feet, pushing Mac slightly behind him. “Hey, man, we’re not looking for trouble.”

“I see. I do not want trouble either,  _ amigo. _ I will pay you well for your little  _ puta _ when we leave here.” He smirks, showing chipped and tobacco-stained teeth. “I think that is a good deal for us both, yes?” He looks past Jack to Mac with a stare that feels as violating as his hands would. “It is not too often we see a pretty one like him.” Mac already knows he stands out, pale and blond amongst the Peruvian prisoners. And that it’s going to make him a coveted prize. 

Mac shivers, watching Jack’s anger rise. A muscle in the man’s jaw is twitching and his fist is clenched tightly. “He’s not for sale. You hear me? Back off now, or I’m gonna lose my temper, and you wouldn’t like me when I’m  _ enojado. _ ” 

“I think you have forgotten, I have friends. You said you did not want trouble, yes?” Mac can feel his heart beating like it’s going to fly right out of his chest.  _ There’s three of them, and Jack is good, but I don’t know... _ And then Jack’s fist flies out, catching the first guy in the jaw. 

It’s an all out fight in a second. Mac tries to help, but he’s pinned between Jack and the bars of the cell, and the men pushing Jack further into the corner means he can’t easily slip out. Jack grabs one guy and slams his head into the bars, but another man catches him in the ribs, and he instinctively doubles over to protect himself. The first guy, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth from Jack’s first punch, reaches for Mac. And then Jack grabs him from behind, locking his arms around the man’s neck.  _ He’s going to kill this guy if he gets so much as a chance. _

There’s shouting, Mac dimly realizes, coming from outside the cell now. Then the door clangs open, and two of the officers rush in, shouting. One of them hits Jack with a wooden stick like a billy club, until Jack releases his hold on the choking man. 

Mac shivers, pushing himself into a corner as the chaos continues. One of the drunk men is shouting too, apparently just feeling like he should be doing what everyone else is. One of the officers has Jack pinned to the bars and is yelling at him. Mac can’t tell what’s being said, he doesn’t know this dialect of Spanish well enough to keep up. But it sounds sort of like this guy is blaming Jack for starting the brawl.

He does understand what the officer tells Jack when he pulls him out of the room.  _ Solitario. They’re putting him in solitary confinement. _ Jack is trying to argue, but it’s probably only making this worse. It makes him look combative. 

Mac can’t move. He feels like he’s the one who’s been punched and choked, like there’s no air left in his lungs. The first man grins at Mac, the blood on his teeth making his smile look even more menacing. “Now we are alone,  _ amigo, _ ” he says cheerfully. 

The man grabs a fistful of Mac’s shirt, pulling him closer. Mac twists away, hearing fabric tearing. “Oh, I like the ones who put up a fight,” someone else says, and then there are  _ more  _ hands, tugging at his already torn clothes and forcing him down. Mac tries to get his arms free, to take a swing at some of these guys, even though he knows he can’t possibly win. But it’s no use. There are too many.  _ And they’re all going to want their turn. _ Mac knows how this kind of thing goes.

It’s no use trying to cry out for help. The guards more than likely won’t care, and Mac is terrified that they might simply join in. He hates to believe the worst of people, but he’s learned the hard way that trust is not something to give freely in a prison. And his fellow cell occupants, at least those who aren’t actively forcing him to the ground, are going to stay out of this; it’s not their problem and they’re not going to risk being victimized as well. Besides, most are too drunk or otherwise incapacitated to be any real help. 

Mac thrashes and struggles, but one man is holding his arms, one is holding his legs, and the third is fumbling with his belt. Mac can feel the empty hollowness of acceptance slipping back into his mind.  _ They’re going to do this and there’s nothing I can do to stop them.  _

Jack’s voice slips into his head, like the man’s standing right there.  _ You fight and you don’t stop fighting. Do whatever you have to, fight dirty. There’s no rules, just do whatever you have to to win. _ Jack might not be here to protect Mac right now, but he taught Mac how to protect himself.  _ Focus.  _ Mac tries to ignore the hands all over him and think. 

They’re holding on tightly because he’s fighting. Mac stops, going absolutely still, even though it screams against every survival instinct in him. It’s enough of a change to throw the men off just a little, and Mac takes advantage of it. He jerks his feet free of the hold on them and kicks out wildly. There’s a muffled grunt of pain, and the man on top of him shifts slightly. Mac keeps thrashing and struggling, he’s not going to let them close enough to his legs to grab them again. He just needs to get his arms free…

A hand clamps down over his throat, and Mac coughs, struggling to draw in a ragged breath.  _ They’re going to choke me until I can’t fight anymore.  _ He feels like he’s already fading.  _ They’re going to knock me out, or at least get close, and then do whatever they want.  _ He can’t fight all three at once. He swallows hard, tears burning at the corners of his eyes.  _ Please, no, I can’t… _

The cell door clangs open, and the pressure on Mac’s throat is mercifully released. 

He struggles to his feet, pulling himself up with the bars of the cell. The guards are talking to him, he realizes slowly. His oxygen-starved brain is struggling to comprehend anything. They have to repeat themselves before he realizes they’re saying someone posted bail. 

He pulls his jacket tighter over his torn shirt as he stumbles out of the cell, zipping it far enough up to hide the damage. No one has to see. No one has to know. Not even Jack. He looks down at his shaking hands.  _ Nothing happened. I’m alright. No one hurt me.  _ But that doesn’t change the fact that he hasn’t always been so lucky. 

_ I was so scared. I knew what they were going to do to me, and Jack wasn’t even there to save me. _ And then Jack  _ is _ there, eyes worried, hands hovering over Mac’s shoulders. 

“I’m okay,” Mac stutters out. “Let’s just go.”

* * *

LIMA 

NOT THE PART ON TOUR GUIDES

Dawn shakes out her hair, running her fingers through the strands. Riley is doing the same. “Thanks for the tip about tying my hair up,” Dawn says. “And the extra elastic.” She hands the black band back to Riley. 

“Trust me, when you pick up fleas in Angola, you learn real fast that it’s best to make it hard for them to get to you.” Riley shrugs. “And I was pretty sure no one in that cell was going to start a fight with us, but it’s just best to not give them something they can pull on.” She seems distracted, though, glancing around. “Mac and Jack should be out here too by now.” 

And then the door opens, and Mac steps out. He looks awful, too pale and like he’s a few seconds away from throwing up, even though it’s clear he’s trying to take deep breaths and hide it. Jack doesn’t look a whole lot better. Dawn would make a joke about the smell in the place, but she holds her tongue. She already knows it’s not the time, and she’d only piss off everyone else.  _ I cope with the past by making light of it. Can’t be sure that’s what Mac does. _

He’s tried so hard to hide his secrets from her, but she can put the pieces together.  _ Someone like him doing hard time would be a nightmare. _ And if she wasn’t already sure, the way he’s got his jacket zipped almost to his throat and his arms crossed defensively over his chest would have confirmed it.

But the second he’s out the door, he seems to force himself to relax. He rests his arms at his sides with an effort, and he’s looking everywhere but at her. 

Jack glances at Riley, and his voice is too cheerful when he talks. Cheerful with an undercurrent of real anger. “You know, we should've busted out of there hours ago.”

“You really want to be hunting an international counterfeiting operation while on the run from the Lima Police Department the whole time, too?” Mac asks; his voice cracks on the first word but he gets it under control fast. 

“It would be a hell of a lot better than sitting around in there.” Jack’s clenched fists are scraped and bruised, and there’s a dark patch on his lower jaw. If there was blood, he’s cleaned it off, but he’s clearly been in a fight.

Jack’s phone rings, and he pulls it out. “Hey Matty. All right, I'm gonna start by saying thank you for the get-out-of-jail-free card.”

“Yeah, you might want to hold on to that thanks, Dalton, because I think that my investigation here may have been the reason you guys got arrested there.”

Riley nods. “Yeah. We were thinking the same thing. Echo got spooked. Obviously, he had some friends in Lima PD.”

“Wasn't too hard to stop us from tailing the mule to the print shop,” Mac says. He sounds better now, there’s more color in his face and he’s not vibrating like he’s going to shake apart right there on the street. 

“Okay, well, you better get back on the trail fast because if Echo does know that you're there, then I bet they've already given the order to pull up stakes. I have three agents in custody right now but clearly none of them called Lima PD from a concrete box. I’m going to bring in everyone Bozer’s search flagged in case they hired someone else to wipe Paul’s computer, but if they know we’re onto them they may already have skipped town.”

“So, now we have to ID Echo before they can cover their tracks.” Mac sounds more confident now, like having something to do, even a tight deadline, is giving him something better to focus on than his own thoughts. 

“And this is the part where you tell me your brilliant plan to locate the money mill.” 

Mac walks over to a map posted on the side of a bus stop. “We, uh, we lost the SUV right here, right?” 

Riley opens her computer and types something in, then nods. “Mm-hmm.”

Dawn glances at the map as well. “It’s a neighborhood pretty far north of the city. Definitely not the kind of industrial site where a counterfeiting ring would be hard to spot. Maybe he was sending us on a wild goose chase to throw us off his tail.”

“Except people trying to lose a tail would probably head into the city where there's traffic and turns, not suburbia. Which means this could be the location of the money mill.”

“You’d think people would notice the noise from those presses,”  Jack says. “I busted my share of counterfeiting ops back in the day, those things are noisy.”

“Actually, they’ve gotten a lot more sophisticated recently,” Riley says. “They could be using modified electric printers with the right kind of ink. It would just look like a work-from-home printer’s business, and no one would question people stopping to pick up orders, or things being shipped in and out. Home business  _ is _ the wave of the self-employment future.” She types something else into her laptop, then sighs. “But unfortunately, we were in lockup long enough that my satellite’s gone, and there won’t be another one in position for five hours. We can’t wait that long to track Echo’s people.”

Dawn leans against the wall, feeling suddenly exhausted. “That's a big area. We don't have time to go door-to-door.”

Riley is still working. Apparently satellite isn’t her only option. “We won't have to. I'm gonna hack into Lima's power company.”

“Yeah, I don't see how that's gonna help us find the dudes making the Monopoly money there, Riley,” Jack says. 

“Well, the whole neighborhood's residential, which means all the families in the area are gonna roughly be using the same amount of power. But an illegal money mill printing counterfeit dollars would be drawing way more electricity. So I'll just write up a little script, scan all the accounts in the neighborhood, and find the outlier.”

“She can really do that?” Dawn asks Jack, not wanting to interrupt Riley’s rapid-fire typing.

“Yeah. She's not even mad yet. Wait till she gets pissed off.”

There’s a hollowness in Jack’s voice, and shadows in his eyes whenever he glances in Mac’s direction. But she knows better than to say anything about it.  _ The best thing for all of us is to get this over with and leave the country. _

They don’t dare take the CIA vehicle from impound. Instead, Mac hotwires an old truck in the lot instead. “I’ll either replace it or some drunk is going to get one heck of an upgrade,” he says as Jack pulls out.

The vehicle only has one row of seats. Mac and Jack climb in the cab, and Riley and Dawn sit down in the pickup bed. Dawn thinks they might actually have gotten the better end of the deal, because she can hear occasional snatches of conversation from up front, and it sounds like Mac isn’t able to get the vent fans running, much less the air conditioning.

When they park in the neighborhood they’re hoping the counterfeiters are in, Dawn is sure she has a serious case of sunburn, and she’s starting to feel dehydrated. She and Riley have both tossed their jackets in the back of the truck, and Jack appears to have done the same, but Mac still his his leather coat on and zipped up.  _ He must be dying in this heat. _ Dawn watches him stumble as he steps out of the truck.

“Hey, you okay?” Mac’s panting, his cheeks are red, and he’s not sweating like the rest of them.  _ Heatstroke? _ “You should probably lose that jacket.”

Mac flinches away from her hands, pulling the leather coat even tighter around him. “I’m fine.” 

“You’re not going to be if you pass out.” 

“Let’s find some shade, okay, kid?” Jack says gently, steering Mac toward some trees. They never make it there. Mac slumps into Jack’s side, and Dawn bites back a gasp.  _ He was worse off than I thought. _

Jack lays Mac down gently in the shade of a couple of trees. “Riley, go ask around and get us some water and wet towels,” he says sharply. Dawn steps back as Riley rushes off. She has the feeling Jack forgot she was here. Because the way he’s bent over brushing Mac’s hair back and starting to loosen his jacket doesn’t look like something either of them want her intruding on. 

* * *

Jack’s less surprised than he should be when Mac goes boneless against him. The kid’s been looking worse and worse the further they’ve driven.  _ He won’t take that jacket off, and the heat and the adrenaline crash and the aftermath of everything were bound to be too much.  _ He really, really hopes that’s all it is.

When he unzips Mac’s jacket, he sees purple marks of handprints around the kid’s throat and curses softly.  _ How far did they get? _ Mac’s shirt is torn badly across the chest, and it doesn’t look like his belt is properly buckled.  _ Oh God no, not again.  _ Jack is never there when the kid needs him most. 

He starts pulling Mac’s jacket off, and Mac thrashes, shoving his hands away. “No, stop,” he whispers, his voice raw between cracked lips.

“Hey, easy now. It’s just me, it’s Jack.” 

“Jack?” Mac blinks, much too slowly. “What…”

“You passed out on me, kiddo. Got too hot.” Jack puts a hand on his shoulder. “We gotta take this jacket off you.”

“No, can’t.” Mac mumbles. “Please.”

“Listen, Mac, no one here is gonna hurt you.” Jack says gently. 

“I don’t want her to see.” Mac doesn’t have to say more, Jack knows what he means. 

“Yeah, I know. Just take the coat off for now, okay? If you feel better later maybe you can have it back.” He’s not going to let the kid fry his brain out of a misplaced sense of shame.  _ He has nothing to be ashamed of, those people who hurt him do. _

Riley runs back with a couple bottles of water and a handful of dripping towels. “Here.” 

“Okay, lay back kiddo.” Jack spreads one towel over Mac’s forehead and another across his chest, arranging it so it hides the marks on his neck.  _ Riley certainly won’t judge, but he hates anyone knowing what happened. _

He dumps one of the electrolyte/purification packets into the bottle and swishes it around.  _ No sense taking chances, he doesn’t need some kind of waterborne pathogen on top of all this. _ “Okay, Mac, when you feel up to it I’m gonna give you small sips, alright?” Mac nods slightly. The dark flush is starting to leave his skin, but Jack knows the kid’s gonna feel like crap for the rest of the day. He’s been there done that more than once.  _ Anything heat related sucks.  _ He’s used to it, he gave himself heatstroke more than once as a kid, before he ever set foot in the Sandbox, but it’s still no picnic. 

By the time Mac’s done with the bottle of water, he’s trying to stand up, swaying a little but managing to get to his feet. “Okay, we need to go find that printing operation before they’re gone.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa hoss.  _ You _ are not going anywhere. You’re staying right here.” Jack pushes him back to the ground. “Me and Riley got this.” 

“What about me?” Dawn asks.  _ Oh right. _ Jack’s not used to her being there. He kind of forgot she existed for a minute or two, his mind taken up with worrying about Mac. 

“Stay and make sure boy genius doesn’t follow us.” She nods, but stays leaning against the truck.  _ She knows Mac’s not too fond of her. _

Riley follows Jack silently to the house her computer is pinging. “Well, this is it,” she whispers. “That house consumes more power than all the others on this block combined.”

Jack peeks into the garage window. “And that car looks pretty familiar.” He glances at Riley. “Got your sidearm on you?”

“Yeah, but it’s not gonna do us any good. Cops emptied my mag checking it over and they weren’t any too careful. Bent something inside it. Best it’s gonna be good for is throwing at someone.” 

Jack sighs. “We got one gun, ten bullets, zero tac teams, and considering how well it went last time we just knocked on a stranger's front door, you, uh want to try something different?” Riley fingers the bandage on her arm and nods.

They jimmy open a window in the basement that leads to an empty room, and now Jack knows for sure this is the right place. That combination of industrial bleach, paper, and ink is unmistakable. Riley waves a hand in front of her face.  “Now, this is what smelling like a million bucks really means,” Jack whispers. Riley groans. 

“They've stopped the printers,” she says quietly, running a hand over a couple of devices in the corner that look so much like the Phoenix office models Jack is taken aback. “But they’re still warm.”

“And what’s that sound?” Jack asks. “If the printers are dead, why is something whirring?”

He carefully pushes open a door and glances through. The sound is a lot louder here, and he can see why. “Remember what you said about computers, how you can't actually delete something?” 

“Erase?”

“Whatever. Check it out.” He points through the door to a man drilling through the hard drives of three laptops. 

“Unless they do that. If Echo's identity was on those laptops, we just lost it.”

_ If Mac was here, he’d come up with a good distraction. _ Jack, on the other hand, is much less sciency. Or subtle. He just walks in, gun drawn. “Hey. What are you doing? Drop that drill, don't move.”

The man drops the drill, but takes off running.

“Whoa! Well, he got half of that right,” Riley says. 

“No, I don't give partial credit.” Jack sees a door at the far end open and someone run in. Someone who rapidly unloads several shots in their direction. Jack fires back. “Ri! Cover me.” Riley holds up her gun with a raised eyebrow and Jack sighs.  _ Forgot about that. _

There’s a rattle of bullets that makes him flinch. This guy’s getting closer, and their exit is now cut off by a wide-open space. 

“I got about four…” He fires again, making the goon duck back behind a stack of bills. “I got about three shots left. Right about now is when Mac would have come up with one of his crazy plans, you know.”

“You were saying?”

Jack wants to scream or punch something or both.  _ Where did you  _ come _ from you idiot? I said stay put! _   “You were supposed to-”

“Stay with Dawn, I know, I know. I’m fine though, really.” Mac looks around the room. “Okay, I can work with this.” He ducks, starting to move toward the wall. “Give me time to get around behind that stack of money, and then when I tell you, crank off those last three shots.” 

“Okay, that sounds like a dumb idea.”

“Do you want my help or not?” Another round of bullets strafes the stacks of money in front of them, and Jack sighs. 

Mac crouches down behind the top-heavy pile. “Okay, now!” Jack fires off all three bullets and then allows the empty gun to click a few times for good measure.

“I’m out!” He shouts exaggeratedly. He’s figured out how this plan works, and while being the bait is never the most fun place to be, he’s pretty sure it’s going to be fine.

The guy shooting at them stands up and moves forward, and Mac shoves his shoulder against the stack of bills. The whole thing topples over, catching the bad guy across the shoulder and throwing him to the ground. 

“Yeah! Right on the money!” Jack says, chuckling as he stands up.

Riley groans. “Couldn't help yourself, could you?” 

“No, I could not.” Jack pulls a couple zipties out of his pockets. “Don't you move.” 

Riley fumbles through the man’s pockets and pulls out a phone. “Two hours ago, he got a text from an L. A. number saying "Burn it down." This has got to be our CIA guy.”

“See what you can do, Riles.” She plugs it into her rig, but stops after a few seconds of typing.

“This text was sent from a burner phone. No location services. There's no way to track it.” 

“Maybe we don't have to,” Mac says suddenly. “Matty said she was bringing in her suspects, right?”

_ Oh, I see where this is going.  _ Jack calls, and Matty picks up on the first ring. “Please tell me that you ID'd the agent, because we are running into a brick wall here.”

“No, we haven't, but maybe you can. We just captured a counterfeiter, and he had a text on his phone saying to shut down the whole operation.”

“And you think it's from Echo?” 

“Riley can't trace the phone, but...how many of your suspects did you manage to round up?”

“All of them, actually. One was at the airport, but he did seem to have a legitimate reason, so we’re still not sure who’s dirty.”

“Well, if you’ve caught all your Pokemon, that phone’s gotta be somewhere in the building there with you.”

“Okay, go ahead and call it.” Riley does. There’s a second delay, and then Jack hears a phone ringing, and his blood goes cold. 

“Matty?” And then her phone hangs up.

* * *

L.A. COASTAL ROAD

A SCENIC SPOT TO DIE

Matty stares out the window into the darkness, wondering exactly how they got here. One minute she’s helping Julian comb through dossiers, trying to find Echo somewhere in mountains of paperwork. The next, a phone’s ringing in his pocket, and she’s realizing the truth she didn’t want to accept. And then Julian marched her out to his car and started driving. 

_ I should have seen it. _ When she showed up at the office with the dossiers of their three first suspects, Julian had let her start interrogations while he stepped out to ‘make a call’. And then when she got off the phone with the Peruvian police, he’d sent a text.  _ He couldn’t ditch that burner because I was watching him the whole time. But he knew they were out of jail and on their way to the money mill. _

She takes a deep breath. Apparently the last thing she’s going to smell before she dies is Julian’s menthol cigarettes.  _ I thought he quit that habit years ago. _ Maybe the stress of running a counterfeiting ring got him started again. 

She glances over at Julian, who’s gripping the steering wheel tightly. “Eyes forward,” he snaps.

“What is killing me going to accomplish, Julian? My team already knows that you’re the dirty agent.”

“Who are they going to call? Thanks to me, the CIA will think they’re involved in the operation, and by the time they can clear that up, I’ll be long gone, along with the only proof they have. And one more body isn’t exactly going to make a difference.”

“What happened to you, Julian? You used to be a good man, a good agent.”

There’s a cold glitter in his eyes when he looks at her, she doesn’t know how she never saw it before. “What happened to me? The Agency happened to me. Twenty years of bending the rules, compromising my morals, and I'm still sweating the mortgage at the end of the month while helping the scum of the earth get rich.”

Matty shakes her head, glancing around the car as she does so.  _ What would Mac find to save himself right now? _ “Save me the tired speech about noble sacrifice and finally getting what you're owed. Okay? We both know that your real motivation was much simpler.”

“Still the analyst at heart, huh? Okay, go ahead. Profile me.” Julian’s voice is clipped.  _ It always hurts to see good agents turn. James, Julian, both of them got tired of playing for the home team, as Jack would say.  _

“Julian, it's no secret that you scored in the top one percent of all Farm graduates ever. But no matter how hard you worked or how many cases you closed, you just couldn't lose the word "deputy" from your job title. And when you finally realized that you were never getting that big office in D. C., you decided to prove just how much smarter you were than everybody else.”  _ Just like James. After Mason killed his wife with a car bomb... _ Matty blinks. That’s it. This car won’t explode, but there is something inside it that can catch fire. The cigarette lighter. She knows the car has one, clearly Julian smokes in it and knowing him, he’d make sure the car had a lighter when he got it. She begins feeling around the console to see if she can find it. This is going to be a lot harder if it’s in the dash. 

“Oh, that's not profiling, that's psy ops,” Julian says cuttingly. “Flattery, manipulation? Trying to get me in a receptive mood before you gently suggest there's another way out of this. And what's next? Oh, let me guess, using my kids' names to remind me of my humanity.”

“How are Alex and Laney, anyway?” She still can’t feel anything. 

“Save your breath. Those tactics don't work with me. I had all the same training you did.” Matty’s fingers brush a raised button, and she presses it down.  _ Was that it? _ She’ll have to risk a look to see if the lighter’s engaged. She glances down and the tiny orange glow of the indicator light is as comforting as anything she’s ever seen.

Julian glares at her. “What are you looking at?”  

“Nothing.” She glances quickly away from the lighter. 

“Right. It's all just a stall tactic. You think you keep me talking, you'll buy enough time for somebody to come find you. Well, I hate to break this to you, but nobody's coming. This little trip of ours ends only one way.”

Matty keeps her eyes glued to the road, the mist coming off the water glimmering in the headlights. “I need to know something. Does it not bother you that you killed an innocent man to cover up a crime? A man with a family. I mean, you do realize that Paul will never see his kids graduate. He'll never see them fall in love or get married.”

“Paul's death was his own fault.” The coldness in that voice unnerves her. 

“Come on, Julian. We lie to the public. We start lying to ourselves, we're finished.”

“I tried everything I could to save Paul's life. Told him the fake passport case was a dud, increased his workload with other cases, even directly ordered him to drop his investigation.”

Matty can’t believe she’s hearing this. “So Paul was a good analyst and a hard worker, and that's your justification for murder?”

“Shut up!” And that’s the moment the lighter pops up. Matty grabs it and jams it against Julian’s leg, and he yells, temporarily yanking the wheel violently. Matty grabs it and pulls.  _ If I’m going down, you’re going down with me.  _ There’s a deafening screech of tires, the car hits something hard, and then everything goes black. 

* * *

PHOENIX JET

JACK IS GLAD TO BE LEAVING PERU

“Thanks Bozer. We’ll be there as soon as we land.” Jack hangs up the phone and glances around at the tense, nervous faces in the plane. “Matty and Deputy Director Halsey were in a car accident on the coast road, but they’re both in stable condition. A passing driver saw the crash and they’ve been airlifted to the closest hospital. Matty hasn’t woken up yet, but they’re saying it’s just a matter of time.” 

Riley turns away, shoulders shaking, and goes back to her seat quietly. Dawn collapses into the nearest chair with a sigh of relief. Mac doesn’t even react. 

He’s scaring the hell out of Jack. Even more than hearing about Matty.  _ She’s in the hospital, she’s got docs swarming her. The kid passed out and got back on his feet way too fast. God only knows what’s wrong with him. _ But the truth is, Jack is beginning to suspect that this is far more a mental problem than a physical one.

He pushes a glass of orange juice across the table to Mac. Mac doesn’t even look at it. He’s just bending paper clips into meaningless abstract shapes and dropping them on the floor. There’s quite a pile. 

“Kiddo, Matty’s gonna be fine. It’s okay.” Jack slides into the booth next to Mac, putting an arm around his shoulder. “You did good out there today, kiddo. We did it. It’s over.” And he hopes Mac knows that he’s talking about far more than the mission.  _ Part of me hopes Julian Halsey never wakes up. It was his doing that got Mac sent to his worst nightmare. _

Mac nods slightly, and stops mangling the paperclip in his hands. “I know.” His voice is painfully small.

Jack looks up. Riley has gotten up, probably headed to pour herself a big drink, and it looks like she’s asking Dawn to join her. He and Mac are alone for the moment, and he’s pretty sure Riley orchestrated that on purpose. There hasn’t really been time to talk about what happened in that cell.  _ I don’t even know how badly they hurt him. _ The bruises on his neck have turned darker, almost black. Jack hopes they don’t last too long, Mac will hate them for every second they’re visible. “Hey, kiddo, I get it if you wanna just leave it behind and move on, but I have to know, from you…”

“They didn’t…” Mac’s voice trails off with a hitch like a sob. “What you’re thinking, it didn’t happen. Matty got us out before…” Still, he was clearly assaulted, and it doesn’t really matter that they didn’t make it all the way. Jack wants to kill every one of those men for just putting their hands on the kid. 

“Mac, I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to protect you.”  _ If anything had happened... _

“It’s not your fault. You tried,” Mac whispers. 

“Tried doesn’t cut it when it comes to protecting you.” There, it’s out in the open, he said it. No matter what, if Mac gets hurt at the end of the day, that’s Jack’s fault.  _ And it happens far too often. Maybe I’m not the best person to be looking after him. _ But Jack shuts that thought away in the dark where it belongs.  _ You ask Mac not to doubt himself. Don’t you start.  _ “I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe, you remember that.” 

Mac curls forward into Jack’s chest and begins to shiver, gasping and sounding like he’s on the edge of sobbing. “I hate that I have to be scared of them at all,” he chokes out. “I hate that I know what they want when they look at me.” Jack’s heard Riley say the same kind of thing, but there’s a bitterness to Mac’s voice that’s not present in Riley’s anger and frustration.  _ He’s lived through it. Over and over and over. _ “

Jack can hear everything Mac isn’t saying, and the real root of the kid’s frustration with Dawn is suddenly, painfully clear.  _ She didn’t even begin to pay for what she did. She got a deal that kept her out of prison.  _ And Mac may have gotten something similar, but he’d already served two years in his own personal hell.  _ God, kid, I wish we had been able to get to you that soon. That you’d never had to learn how twisted people can be. _

He can’t bring himself to correct the kid’s frustrations, not now at least, not after watching what happened in that cell today.  _ I know he’s jealous and angry, but I get it.  _ He holds Mac a little tighter, wishing there was a way to go back, to find him before the worst happened. 

“Oh kiddo. If I could make all of that go away, I would.” He smoothes Mac’s hair back off his forehead. 

“I know,” Mac says quietly, and his fingers twist into Jack’s. It doesn’t make everything right again, but it starts to. And then the kid speaks up again and his words send a shock of ice down Jack’s spine. 

“Jack, I’m sorry.” 

“What the hell kiddo?” Jack asks. “What for?”  _ Oh God did he lie to me about how bad it was? _

“I was...I was gonna try and find James myself. I was going to go it alone.” He swallows.

_ Oh, that.  _ “I know, buddy.” Mac drags in a startled breath. 

“You did?”

“Mac.” Jack keeps his voice soft and kind. “Of course I knew that. Because I know you. And I knew the second that creep threatened us that you were gonna want to find him alone.” Jack’s hand skims through the kid’s hair, and Mac relaxes against him. “Kiddo, I appreciate that you want to protect us. But that’s not how this works. And not because you’re not good enough to find him yourself, or too weak to face him. It’s because…” Jack sighs. “Because I want to be the first one to sock that son of a bitch in the jaw.” 

* * *

HOSPITAL ROOM

MAC HATES THEM EVEN WHEN HE’S NOT THE ONE ON THE BED

It feels wrong to see Matty on a hospital bed, her head bandaged and her face bruised. Mac lifts his fingers to his own neck; Phoenix medical said it’s not serious but that there was swelling that must have gone down.  _ Probably didn’t help the whole heatstroke panic attack thing.  _

Matty blinks up at them. “Welcome back.”

Jack grins. “Now, we, uh, we missed you, boss lady.”

“Good to see you, too, Jack. Riley, Mac, Boze.” Mac swallows the tightness in his throat. He can’t lose another member of his family. He can’t even think about it. 

He smiles instead. “Word on the street is that you took down Julian Halsey with a cigarette lighter, is that true?”

“Well, the guardrail that we hit might have helped a little.” She smiles too. 

“Wow. I'm a fan of your work.”

Bozer slow-claps. “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you don't mess with Matty the Hun.”

“What did you just say?” Matty asks, her voice soft and dangerous. 

“Abort that. Abort that,” Jack whispers. Bozer clears his throat.

“Uh, Me? Nothing. I-I didn't say anything.”

“Call me that again, Boze, and there won't be enough morphine in this entire hospital to ease your pain.” 

“Copy that. Yes, ma'am.” 

Matty seems to have decided she’s terrorized Bozer enough for one day. “So, where is Julian now?” 

Jack grins. “He's two doors down. Handcuffed to a hospital bed, of course, guarded by two federal agents.”

Riley steps up. “And more good news, when he does finally wake up, he will be arrested and charged for conspiracy, defrauding the United States government, and murder.”

“Yeah, going directly to jail. Not passing go, not collecting 200 counterfeit dollars, none of that.” Bozer flinches when Jack pinches his arm. “What did I say? You always make jokes.” But Mac knows why Jack shut this one down.  _ You don’t have to be that defensive. Just the word ‘jail’ isn’t going to make me want to puke. _ But he does need to stop thinking about that now.

Riley, thankfully, changes the subject. “And the good news doesn't end there. The counterfeiting operation in Peru has been shut down.”

Bozer cuts in again, clearly anxious to redeem himself. “Indeed, it has. And the National Police confiscated all the relevant evidence, including $247 million in fake hundreds and $4 million in real one-dollar bills. The fake money is being destroyed as we speak.”

_ Four million?  _ Mac shakes his head. 

Matty must have noticed. “What's wrong, Mac?” 

“It's-it's probably nothing.” But he actually thinks it is. 

Matty is insistent. “What is it?” 

“We, uh, we actually found $5 million in one-dollar bills in that house in Peru.”

Bozer frowns at him. “We did? Not according to the paperwork Phoenix received.”

Matty glowers. “Please tell me that Dawn is in the waiting room.” 

“No, she had to go back to the CIA for their own debrief, seeing as she’s not technically Phoenix…” Jack stops. “Oh hell no. She did  _ not. _ ”

Matty is the picture of righteous fury, and Mac is slightly afraid she’ll jump up, rip out her IV and monitor equipment, and march off after Dawn herself. “What are you people still standing here for? Go find me that woman, and get me back my million dollars .Now.”

* * *

PARK BENCH

RILEY’S GO-TO CLANDESTINE MEETING SPOT

Riley pushes a cup of coffee with two sugars and a cream across the bench. 

“Who told you my coffee order?” Dawn asks, adjusting the scarf that hides most of her face so that she can take a sip from the cup.

“I’m a spy. It’s my job to figure out things like that. Like the fact that you took that one million in singles straight to an orphange called “The Meadow Home for Girls”.” Riley sighs. “I really wish you hadn’t done it like that.”

“Are you going to turn me in?”

“For donating a million dollars to an orphanage?” Riley lets a ghost of a smile slip across her face. “We’re a lot of things, but heartless isn’t one of them. Phoenix has charity write-offs, and, well, with a little tweaking, there’s no evidence that you broke the law at all.” 

“Why are you doing this?” Dawn asks. 

“Because if no one gave me a few more than one second chance, I wouldn’t be here.” Riley says. “Don’t get me wrong, you have a lot of apologizing and making up to do, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Matty doesn’t want to see your face again for a while.”

“And Jack?”

“That’s the thing. Jack’s the one who gave  _ me _ all those second, third, and one hundredth chances. I’m just paying it forward.”

“He raised a good woman.” 

Riley just smiles. 

  
  



	21. Skyscraper-Power

###  220-Skyscraper-Power

NEPAL 2012

ANOTHER STEREOTYPICAL BAD GUY LAIR

RILEY THOUGHT THIS WASN’T SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THE MOVIES

_ This isn’t even close to the first time a man has given Riley a black eye, or a concussion, or a split lip.  _ Taking interrogation resistance training (AKA torture class) at The Farm was a trip. _ Half the things the class covered were all too reminiscent of Riley’s childhood.  _ It’s not like Elwood hit me every day. Or even every week.  _ But he got blackout drunk at least once a month, and those were the nights Mom wasn’t the only outlet for his anger.  _

_ “Where is the rest of your team?” A heavily accented voice cuts through the fog in her brain. “Tell me, and I will end this quickly. Otherwise…” There’s a sloshing sound, and then a wet cloth is slapped over her face.  _

This is new. _ Riley struggles uselessly against the ropes tying her to the chair, trying to remember what that torture class said about waterboarding. But the only thing she can remember is that time she was eight and choked on a glass of water because she was laughing at the way Elwood had turned the tops of the salt and pepper shakers on the diner’s table into hats for his thumbs.  _

_ She almost laughs at the incongruity of it all. But there isn’t any air in her lungs to laugh with. And it hurts. It really hurts. _

_ The cloth is ripped away, and for a second the face on the other side is blurry, some weird amalgam of Elwood and whoever the man torturing her is.  _ We don’t have this guy on any of our dossiers. But we really ought to.

_ “Still nothing?” And then the cloth and the water are back and she’s screaming without any air to scream  _ with.

_ She doesn’t talk. She can’t. She already has the deaths of her four tac team members on her conscience.  _ I owe it to them to protect everyone else. Like they died trying to protect me. _ If the least she can do is the same as them, at least maybe they won’t have died in vain.  _ I can’t give in. I can’t let them break me. _ Those men wouldn’t want that. Jack wouldn’t want that.  _ I’ve disappointed him enough already.

_ She doesn’t know how long it is before it stops. Before she’s dragged back to the empty stone room that’s the safest place here for her. At least in there, no one hurts her.  _

_ She curls on the floor, clutching her broken ribs as her lungs spasm, trying to force out more water. She knows she has to get it out, or she’ll die of pneumonia, but it feels like she’s dying  _ now. __

_ Maybe that’s the best thing she can hope for, though. She’s not sure how much longer she can do this. There’s no sense of time in here at all. Her watch was taken away before they brought her here, and it’s constantly dark. She can’t tell how many days have passed. Or how many she has left in her.  _

Trust Riley Davis to not even make it a year in the field. _ She feels like a teenager again, more afraid of how pissed her mom would be if she got in a car accident and died, than of any punishment she’d get for sneaking out of the house with her friends.  _ I wasn’t all that scared of dying. I was just scared of disappointing other people.  _ She grew up with Elwood disappointing her at every turn. She didn’t want to be that kind of person. But maybe she didn’t really have a choice in the matter after all. _ Jack and Matty trusted me, believed in me, gave me a chance. And I ruined it. _ She might as well die, because how is she ever supposed to go back?  _ What I did got my whole tac team killed. _ If Jack isn’t dead too he’s going to want to quit working with her. Maybe Matty will send her back to a desk job. There’s no good way this ends.  _

_ She’s drifting, her mind an oxygen deprived haze of Elwood, and Mom, and this monster of a man torturing her, and Jack. Everything blurs together, and she’s falling, falling, falling into blackness. Maybe it will hurt less than waking up. And then, impossibly, someone catches her.  _

_ “Hey, hey, it’s okay. I got you.” She knows that voice. Jack’s warm arms close around her. She blinks.  _ What is he doing here? _ She can smell blood and gunpowder. _

_ “Jack?” She whispers, but her voice comes out all broken and hoarse and bubbly.  _

_ “Hey, it’s alright now. We’re goin’ home, baby girl.”  _ Baby girl? _ Her brain might be foggy, but she knows she didn’t mishear that.  _ Why is he acting like this? _ She’s the one who blew the whole op, who got cocky and got caught. This is all her fault.  _

_ “I…” _

_ “Shhh. It’s okay. God, you’re freezing. Here.” There’s a swishing sound, and Riley flinches as cloth brushes against her face.  _ Not again, please, not again, I can’t… _ And then she’s surrounded in something warm and soft. It smells like gunpowder smoke and sweat, and she realizes Jack just gave her his own shirt.  _

_ Jack scoops her up, and she feels him wrap her in something thick and blissfully warm. She blinks up at him with bleary eyes, and it looks like he’s smiling. “Come on, kiddo. Let’s get you home.”  _

* * *

MAC’S HOUSE

TOO QUIET

Jack walks up to the door and opens it.  _ Bozer came in to work two hours ago. Mac should definitely be awake by now.  _ Mickey trots up and sniffs at Jack’s hands and boots, but he’s not freaking out or barking so things can’t be too bad. Mickey’s trained to recognize and respond to distress signs. If Mac was in trouble they'd know.

"Hey, where is he, bud? Where's Mac?" Mickey races off, skidding around the furniture, across the deck and down the other side. 

Jack sighs, walking around to the deck. Mickey runs up to the window that opens off Mac's room, sniffing and whining. “Hey, Mac! You home?” There’s no answer. “Hey, man. Where you at?” Mickey licks a line of drool on the glass, then trots off, and Jack walks around and down the hall until he stops outside the door of Mac’s room. 

Jack glances inside and sees the kid sprawled out with his head on his desk, looking like a college kid who just pulled an all-nighter. He chuckles softly and walks in. “Yo. Hey, Mac. Mac, what are you doing?” The kid doesn’t so much as twitch.  _ He is breathing, right? _ “Hey. You alive?” 

Mac sits up with a sudden gasp. “External force is always zero.” He says it as clearly matter-of-factly as if he was in the middle of a conversation, then turns around. When he sees Jack, he presses the heels of his hands against his eyes, then runs his fingers through his hair. 

“What kind of weird dreams you having, dude?” Jack asks, starting to chuckle. 

Mac stretches, wincing. Clearly falling asleep in his desk chair was uncomfortable. “I was giving a lecture, on the, uh Lagrangian formulation of quantum field theory.”

“Ah.” Jack walks over and rests his hands on the kid’s shoulders, rubbing gently, and Mac relaxes slightly.  _ I know from personal expereince that’s the only cure for chair-induced backache. _

“To a class full of tiny unicorns.”

“Well, aside from the unicorns, which are wicked awesome, sounds like a frickin' nightmare.”

Mac chuckles slightly, then blinks at Jack worriedly. “What time is it?” 

“It's eleven o’clock. In the morning.” 

“What?”

“Kid, what is all this stuff?” Jack pushes around several of the books on the desk. They all look like college-level textbooks.  _ Is he trying to get an online degree? _ Jack knows the kid feels bad sometimes that he doesn’t even have a college degree.  _ He could get one easy, he’s so smart... _

“Uh, Mission City middle school’s having its annual science fair and somehow Mr. Ericson pulled some strings to get me in as the guest speaker.”   
“Okay, who in their right mind gives a lecture on quantum mechanics to middle schoolers?”

“I’m not giving the lecture on quantum mechanics. I was just looking for one specific example…” He trails off. “Yeah, you’re right, I should probably just steer clear of that altogether.” 

Jack sighs.  _ Of course, you nerd, that’s something that only occurs to you now... _ “Okay, when are the nerds congregating? I want to know so I can make sure I’m far enough away to avoid the blast radius if one of your mini-mes causes another football nuclear bomb thing.” 

“It was a small meltdown. Contained. And it wasn’t a football. It burned down the football stadium.”

“You are not reassuring me at all, you know that, right?”

“Yeah. And it’s…” Mac’s voice trails off and he points to his desk calendar, which is now stained with a patch of drool.  _ Kid, you really do remind me of a puppy sometimes. _

“Dude, that’s  _ this _ weekend.” Jack sighs. “Is that why you’re pulling all nighters? Your old teacher spring a last-minute assignment on you?” He really needs to call the guy again at some point. Jack can’t tell Art Ericson everything that happens, but he’s been able to share a few things, and frankly it’s just nice to have someone to talk to who knows Mac.  _ And he’s glad I’m around to keep an eye on the kid. _

Mac picks up a pencil and crosses off the box on the calendar with yesterday’s date. “I mean, I knew for a couple weeks, but we’ve been so busy, and I just didn’t have time.” Mac gestures to the desk. “I know what I’m gonna talk about, or at least I think I do, but I just have to make it all come together. And I don’t have that last piece yet.”

“Well, try not to make that missing piece a quantum physics analogy, alright?” 

“Yeah.”

Jack’s phone pings, and he pulls it out, then sighs.

“Matty?” Mac asks. 

“Yeah. Let's go, we're late.” Mac scrambles to his feet, straightening his rumpled shirt and trying to smooth out his hair. Jack shakes his head. “Come on, I brought bagels in the car. Or I know you’d run right outta here without eating a thing.” He’s had the kid pass out on him once too often already.  _ He’s lucky it was only mild dehydration and heat exhaustion.  _ He didn’t even have to stay in medical, provided he made sure he was drinking fluids consistently and resting. 

“Unicorns. Really?” Jack asks as they pull out of the driveway. 

Mac stops smearing garlic cream cheese on his onion bagel. He has weird taste in breakfast food.  _ Well, at least maybe that’ll cover up the morning breath.  _ “Yeah. They were wicked smart, too.”

“Yeah, I’ll tell Val you were comparing her to a mythical creature next time I see her.” Jack chuckles. He missed seeing her at the robotics competition that went so crazy, he still thinks he should have ditched his reunion and gone to the robo-pocalypse instead. 

_ I’m glad Val has someone like Mac in her life.  _ Jack wonders for not the first time what would have happened if Mac hadn’t moved, if Mr. Ericson had still been able to mentor him.  _ Would the kid be a Nobel prize winner right now? _ It’s not that he doesn’t think Mac is happy doing what he does. It’s just that some days, the inside of a classroom or a research lab seems a whole lot safer for Mac than the field. Especially when the field involves a locked holding cell filled with monsters.  _ I wish we could protect him from all of that. _

He glances over at Mac, whose still-ruffled hair is falling into his eyes as he bends over trying to keep crumbs from getting all over Jack’s floor mats.   _ Oh kid. You deserve so much better than us. But honestly, I’m selfish, and I can’t imagine my life without you. _ Maybe it was just meant to be this way. He just wishes they could have found each other with a little less trauma involved.

* * *

THE WAR ROOM

NOT REALLY THE PLACE TO START YAWNING

“Are you with us, Mac?” Matty asks. Mac covers his mouth with a guilty shrug, he’s still waking up. The bagel and coffee helped, but honestly he was up until four and he just can’t seem to shake himself back into awareness.  _ I got seven hours of sleep, that should be enough. _ He hopes the tiredness goes away soon. 

Thankfully, Matty isn’t staring at him anymore. “Okay. Now that we are all finally here, you have a mission.”

Mac figures since Cage is in the room, the mission came through her, and when she speaks up a moment later, he’s right. “A research and development lab in Perth lost an extremely powerful handheld EMP six months ago,” Sam says. “It’s the size of a soda can, with enough power to knock out a city block. Or any large building.”

“A government office, a hospital, an airport...terrorists could do a lot of damage with something like that,” Riley says. 

“Strangely, no one has done anything yet,” Matty says. “It seems that the thief was the middle man, holding onto the device for a third-party buyer until the heat died down.” 

“But he certainly wasn’t an amateur.” Sam takes over, and her voice sounds strained. “An SAS team sent in to retrieve the EMP when it turned up briefly in Canberra for a sale walked into an ambush. They lost the device, and most of a tactical assault team.” Cage’s face is blank, but Mac wonders if she had friends on that team. This coming to them means it’s probably personal. 

“After the attack, the whole group fell off the grid.” Matty pulls up a briefing from the failed mission. “Every agency in the Pacific region has been looking for them ever since.” 

Sam pulls up another screen, this one filled with what look like encrypted emails. “Twelve hours ago, we intercepted chatter suggesting that they're setting up another sale. Since the first buy fell through, these guys probably want to unload the EMP as quickly and profitably as possible.”

“Do we know who the buyer is? And what they want it for?” Riley asks. 

“Unfortunately, we do not. They’re using code names that don’t connect to any known organization, and their communication was through logins at Chinese cyber-cafes. However, we do know exactly when and where the sale is going down.” Matty pulls up an image on the screen.

“That looks an awful lot like a parking garage.”

“That's because it is a parking garage, Dalton. And this particular parking garage is located in Seoul, South Korea. The sale's being set up for tomorrow morning at 6:00 a.m., which means you five are wheels-up in twenty.”

“Five?” Jack asks.

Cage nods. “These guys took out three of the best operators I know...knew.” Her eyes are stormy. “I’m coming with you.” Mac knows she got the medical clearance for missions a few weeks ago, but aside from bending the rules to be on the tac team that brought in Murdoc, she hasn’t set foot in the field again. “This is our one shot to grab that device, and keep it from falling into even more dangerous hands.” 

Matty nods. “Make it count. And don’t get killed.”

* * *

PARKING GARAGE

THIS MEET DIDN’T GO AS PLANNED

“Why do I show Mac and Jack racing through Seoul at 90 miles per hour?” Bozer tries to tune out the voice in his ear and look past the blood on the floor. There’s a whole lot of it.  _ One thing movies don’t normally tell you is how fresh blood smells. It’s like a slaughterhouse in here. _ “Guys? Guys. Hello? Do you copy?” 

He can hear Jack finally come in. “H-Hey, Matty, guess what? The buy went bad.”

“Actually, it wasn't so much of a sale as it was a fatal ambush where the buyers killed the sellers and then left with the EMP.” Cage is kneeling beside one of the bodies. Bozer guesses the woman has very little sympathy for them.  _ They killed people she worked with, people she clearly cared about. _ Every time this happens, it makes him a little more scared for his own team. 

“We're tailing them now,” Mac says. 

“Whatever you do, do not lose sight of that device. Cage, Riley, Bozer, I need to know exactly who we're chasing. Get me intel.” Bozer hears the comms switch over to take Mac and Jack off the frequency temporarily.  _ Split channels helps streamline the mission. They can focus on pursuing these guys, we can focus on checking over the scene.  _

Bozer takes a breath through his mouth, it makes the smell marginally better. “Copy that, Matty. Just as an FYI, it's a bit of a mess over here.” 

“I'm not asking you to clean it up, Boze. Just search it.”

“We're on it.” Riley’s voice is strangely quiet.  _ Maybe it’s getting to her too. Or maybe she’s just too focused on her work.  _

“Wow. These guys took out most of an SAS team, and it looks like they never stood a chance.” Bozer can’t help but feel intimidated.  _ I was scared enough of these sellers after Cage’s story. Now it looks like we should be more afraid of the buyers. _

Riley joins Cage at the closest body. The man was shot in the head, just below his armored helmet.  _ They were geared like a tac team and someone still found their weak points. _ “I know this style.” Riley is trembling. Bozer blinks, because he’s rarely seen her look this shaken.  _ What’s wrong with her?  _ “Matty, I think I can ID our buyers.”

“You can?”

“Fist of Power.” The name means nothing to Bozer, but it clearly does to everyone else listening. Bozer can hear a sharp intake of breath from Matty. Cage stands up quickly. There’s a new kind of anger in her eyes. 

“Are you sure?” Matty asks.

“Sure enough.” Riley replies in a flat voice. 

“What does everyone but me know about these guys?” Bozer asks. He’s not so sure he really does want to know, but it sounds like bad news. Really bad news. 

“It was my first op that went really bad,” Riley says quietly; she’s turned off her comms so the only audience is Bozer and Sam. “I was tasked with breaking into a building they were using as a communications center and hacking into their system directly. They were communicating using a high-level encryption, and the only key to cracking it was on an airgapped server. Jack took half a team to act as a distraction, and the rest covered me when I broke in and went for the servers. But somehow I missed blacking out some part of their security, and they saw me coming.” She swallows hard. “They killed the entire CIA tac team protecting me. Just like that. And then they came for me.” 

Sometimes Bozer forgets Riley is a spy who puts her life on the line every day. And that that’s what she’s done for all of her adult life. She’s not like Matty, or Thornton, with their visibly cold calm and collected demeanors, or even Mac, with readily identifable PTSD symptoms. She’s most like Jack, hiding the pain of a life spent getting knocked down and getting back up again behind a smile and a cheesy one-liner. But even they can’t hide everything away forever. 

Even so, she doesn’t have Jack’s hard edges. But looking at her now, Bozer can see the beginning of them. In ten years, she’ll be more like Jack than she would ever want to admit.  _ Then again, that’s not the worst thing in the world. _

“Their deaths were on me. I was too young, too cocky, and I wasn’t careful enough.” Suddenly Riley’s double-checks on her camera control in buildings makes sense. She’s always seemingly paranoid about missing a piece of a security system, and wants to have the schematics if at all possible.  _ This is why. _

“You okay?” Bozer asks, because Riley is scarily pale and her hands are shaking. It’s how Mac looks before he has a panic attack. 

Riley glances at the body on the ground. “Better than he is.”  _ She walked away. These guys weren’t so lucky. _

“I know this one's personal for you, Riley,” Cage says. “But what happened to those agents wasn’t on you. It was a mistake. And they happen.”

“It happened because I missed…” Riley trails off and starts typing frantically. 

“What is it?”

“If I missed it, maybe they did too.” She’s not making a lot of sense, but Bozer doesn’t think this is a good time to bring that up. He looks down at her rapidly moving fingers, suddenly noticing the white line on the back of her wrist that moves up her arm to disappear under the sleeve of her leather jacket.  _ Was that from these men, or from someone else? _ It’s a bizarre feeling to suddenly wonder how many times one of your friends has been tortured. He’s used to doing it with Mac, but not with Riley. 

Suddenly, she jumps like she’s succeeded. “Matty, I have something. These guys knocked out all the security cameras  _ in _ the garage, but they didn’t count on one across the street at an ATM. I think it caught a shot of the van.”

She pulls up the image on her rig. It’s a picture of the same kind of dark vehicle Mac and Jack are currently chasing. The driver is the only one Bozer can see, and whoever it is is wearing a mask. But there’s a thin strip of skin showing between his shirt collar and the mask edge, and there’s something black on it. Like a tattoo. 

“That. On his neck. What is that?” Bozer asks. 

“I don’t think I can enhance it any more...Oh God.” Riley nearly drops her rig. “It’s him.”

“It’s who?” Bozer asks. 

Riley doesn’t respond. “Matty. I need my file. From the Nepal op.” There’s a chime and she pulls up a dossier on her rig, opening it and skimming past highly redacted action reports until she gets to a photo attached with the documents. 

“Are you sure this is the guy? I mean, that image was pretty blurry,” Bozer says, staring at the picture.

Riley looks down at the photo, which is nothing more than an artist rendering sketch. But the tiger tattoo is clearly visible. “Bozer, you never forget the first person who tortured you.” 

_ No, I guess you wouldn’t. _

* * *

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA

AT LEAST THEY HAVE NICE VEHICLES

Jack whips around a corner, ignoring the enraged honking from a small electric car he just cut off. 

“Jack, please tell me you’re using those skills you’re always bragging about and getting closer to our guys?” Matty says. Jack shakes his head.  _ I’m a skilled precision driver, not a miracle worker. _

“This is some pretty fancy driving they’re doing too, Matty. Spec ops, ambush tactics. I don't know who these dudes are, but they're well-trained.”

Mac glances out the windshield, at the turn the van they’re tailing is taking. “That's an airport up ahead. And it doesn't look like they plan on sticking around Seoul much longer.” Jack can see a heavy-built jet on the runway, turning and getting ready to taxi.  _ Damn, these guys have their own exfil. We didn’t cut off another black ops team in action, did we? _

“Matty, we’re sure these guys aren’t SAS, CIA, or MI6 or something?” Jack curses when he gets caught in a box of other cars. The van is entering the airfield now, he’s losing the tight tail he had.  _ Damn it, they’re getting even more of a head start.  _

“All other agencies were holding off. We were the ones who intercepted the call.” Matty doesn’t bother saying another agency wouldn’t have left the carnage in the parking garage. She and Jack have both been in the business long enough to know that sometimes wetwork is an expected part of a retrieval op, especially when a former team’s been killed. “Riley’s working on trying to ID them now, but I’d rather we get to do that in person.” 

“We’re tryin’, Matty.” Jack watches the van screech to a halt next to the plane, and the men inside pile out, heading for the lowered ramp. 

“Put on your safety belt,” Jack says, driving straight for the closest gate, which is chained closed.  _ Yeah, I know, I sound like a dad. So sue me. _

“It's on.”

“Put it...oh.” Jack was expecting complaint. Something along the lines of, ‘oh no, Jack, I can’t do that, because I need to be leaning out of the window throwing a homemade grenade at their plane while we crash through the fence at seventy miles an hour’.  _ The sad thing is, I’d probably find that an acceptable excuse.  _

Their SUV smashes through the metal fencing, but it’s already too late. Jack watches the plane reach the end of the runway and take off.  _ I don’t think Mac’s gonna be able to chase this one down like he did Nick’s. _ That feels like a lifetime ago already.  _ Honestly, at this point, seeing him take off dangling from the undercarriage would scare the hell outta me. _ Jack glances over at Mac as the kid leans wearily on the hood, looking a bit dejected. “Well, I don't suppose you could whip up a set of wings for this van real quick.”

“Probably. But I just thought of something way faster.” Mac’s frown is replaced with a slow smile as he turns, glancing toward a plane just warming up on the runway, boarding stairway still down. It’s a small private jet.

“Ooh, Mac, are you thinkin’ what I think you’re thinkin’?” Jack grins. “Let’s go steal ourselves a plane.” 

Jack kind of hates to wave his gun in the face of the surprised pilot and co-pilot, but it’s going to be the easiest way to get them to cooperate. “Surprise, surprise. Heads up, gentlemen. We are officially commandeering your vehicle.”

Mac looks much more apologetic, turning to the old couple sitting in the passenger compartment, both of whom look pretty shaken.  _ Oh, are we playing good cop, bad cop here? _ “Hi. I'm really, really,  _ really _ sorry about this.” And then the kid shuts the door, wincing.  _ Yeah, he hates breaking the law when there’s witnesses.  _ Jack doesn’t blame him. 

“Where are we going?” The pilot, a stocky woman with a grey braid, asks. Jack points out the windscreen at the disappearing speck on the horizon. “Follow that plane.”

“You got it.” The woman looks from Jack’s gun to the controls.  _ Sure, Matty’s gonna get a lock on that plane and send us coordinates to stay on it, but saying ‘follow that plane’ just sounds so much cooler.  _

Jack pulls out his phone, preparing to take one heck of a selfie. “Hey, you don't want to get in here? Come on.” He steps in between the pilot and co-pilot and snaps a picture, making sure to catch the jet they’re pursuing in the photo as well. “Hey, there we go.” He rejoins Mac, who’s standing in a corner with his arms folded. 

“Hey, don't look at me like that. When I tell people I was in a high-speed jet chase, I'm gonna need some selfies as proof.” He grins at Mac. “One with you too. Smile.” Mac gives him a small one. “Come  _ on, _ kid, you can’t tell me you’re not having just a little bit o’ fun!” This time, the smile is definitely genuine. “Hey, there we go. Aw, that's a good one.” Jack is going to save this picture.  _ When Mac really honestly smiles, I want to keep every single one of them. _

His phone begins to buzz, and he answers it. “Hey Matty, so, we’re still on those guys’ tail. Has Riley got them on a sat view or something?”

“She does. Real-time coordinates are being sent to your phone right now, and she, Cage, and Bozer are on our plane following you guys. But Jack, that’s not our biggest news.” And that tone is the one that makes his stomach drop. 

“We’ve positively identified our shooters as the East Asian terror group  _ Khüchnii Nudarga _ , or...Fist of Power.” Riley’s voice is shaky.

“Wait. Those are the guys we went up against back in the CIA days.”  _ The op where we got separated and she got caught and tortured for five days. _ It was her first really bad experience as an agent.

Matty’s voice is tense, she’s clearly remembering it too. “Yes, and it looks like they weren’t quite as dismantled as we were hoping.” Both his and Mac’s phones ping simultaneously. Jack opens the file on it, it’s not very long. “Meet  _ Bar, _ or ‘the Tiger’. He’s the younger brother of the former leader. He’s the group’s enforcer, the muscle, the brawn to his big brother’s brains. And he’s pissed.” Matty sighs. “Your operation with the CIA brought in his big brother and crippled the whole organization. It’s taken the Tiger years to rebuild it, and it looks like this is his first big move since taking control.”

“This is it?” Mac asks. “There’s barely anything in this file.” Jack wishes there was less, but this isn’t the time to explain it all. 

“It’s thanks to Riley that we know what we do about him,” Matty says. “She’s the only person outside of Fist of Power to have seen him and lived to tell about it.” 

“He’s a blunt instrument,” Riley says. “He didn’t like to act on his own. Needed to be told what to do. His brother knew how to direct his violence. On his own, he’s been too volatile. His group kept splintering and reforming, which is why they’ve never been a serious threat.”

“So what changed?”

“He found someone to give him direction, most likely.” Riley sighs. “I don’t think he orchestrated this on his own. I think someone was sending him instructions. So now that I have the sellers’ tech, I’m trying to use the encrypted emails they were sent to see if they sound like anyone  _ else’s _ patterns of speech that matches our watchlists. See who might be using the Tiger as their muscle man.” Jack doesn’t like this. Memories of one of his kids being hurt are mixing with the very real threat that the same people are going to hurt his  _ other  _ kid. 

“Hey, uh, Matty, any idea where these guys are taking the EMP?” Mac asks. “Maybe a target could give us a name.” 

“I've got our techs working up a list of every high-value target that one could reach with that kind of jet and a full tank of gas. Military bases, nuclear plants, industrial centers, basically anywhere that an electromagnetic pulse could fry sensitive electronics and have a devastating impact. I'm using the jet's current speed and heading to eliminate certain targets, but there's still dozens in range.”

“In other words, you don't know nothing. Why don't you just say that "I don't know nothing. Your guess is as good as anybody else's”.” Jack knows it’s not fair to take this out on her but he’s angry, and Matty won’t take it personally. At least not too much.  _ Damn it, we need to stop these guys before something bad happens again. _

“Jack…” Matty says warningly.

“I’m just saying. We got nothing. Bupkis. D…” There’s a pinging sound from the back of the plane, a seatbelt indicator. “What the hell is that?” 

Mac just shrugs. “Probably the elderly couple whose plane we just commandeered?”

“Oh. Oh, oh, my gosh, I forgot all about them. I'll go back there and make sure they know  _ we're _ not terrorists.”

“Hold on, I'm not gonna let you do that by yourself…” Mac trails off as Jack steps through the door and gets a faceful of a cold metal ice bucket.  _ Ouch. _

* * *

THEY DID KIND OF STEAL THIS PLANE

SO THEY PROBABLY DESERVE THIS

Mac ducks before he takes a hit from the same guy who just whacked Jack with a bucket. Jack rubs his cheek with a grimace. 

“Ow! Oh. What are you doing? Give me that.” Jack wrenches the bucket out of the man’s hand and holds it backward toward Mac. “I just came back here to tell you guys not to worry. We're...uh..we’re the good guys.”

“Good guys?” The man asks.  

“Yeah,” Mac says weakly. 

“You're hijacking our plane!”

“Now, ‘hijack’ is a very strong word, sir.” Jack says. It sounds funny to hear the word in quick succession so many times, especially when it sounds weirdly familiar... _ oh right _ . 

_ If we weren’t in such a tense situation, I’d say it’s not such a strong word really, I say it to Jack almost every morning… _ Mac hopes he’ll remember that joke long enough to use it later. 

The elderly man still looks angry enough to grab any nearby moveable object and whack Jack again, and his wife is starting to protest as well, her hand going to the cane near her seat. 

“You forced your way onto our plane, you told our pilot where to fly, what do you call that?” She asks vehemently. 

“Yeah. That's the definition of hijacking,” Mac mumbles.

“Thank you very much, Merriam-Webster.” Jack shakes his head. “Commandeered is the same thing, and it sounds so much better. Ya know?”

“Who are you people, and what are you doing on our plane?” The man asks.  

“Okay, okay. Maybe we did  _ commandeer _ the plane just a little bit, but it's a matter of national security,” Jack insists. 

Mac nods. “We work with the U.S. government. And we need your plane to chase some very dangerous people who just killed a lot of other people and stole a powerful weapon.” 

Now the man has turned his admittedly very justified anger on Mac. “Hey, sonny, I wasn't born yesterday.” He grabs the bottle that must have been in the ice bucket and brandishes it. 

Jack shakes his head. “No, sir, that's very apparent, but it doesn't change the fact that he's telling the truth.”

“Yeah?”

“We work for Uncle Sam. I’m ex-military…” 

Mac briefly wonders how Jack could possibly explain  _ his  _ past and not scare these people even more, but they never have the chance to get there.

“Oh, no. He's lying, Saul. Hit him again.”

“That's not very nice,” Jack mumbles, pulling back to put some space between him and the irate couple. 

Saul turns to his wife. “Now, now, now, you just wait a minute.”

“You're not gonna do it, give me the bottle, I'll do it.”  _ She reminds me of Riley in a weird way.  _ Mac bites his lip, thinking of her back on their own plane, forced to comb through her own memories to try and stop what’s happening now. He may not know much about whatever op it was where Jack and Riley crossed paths with these ‘Fist of Power’ guys, but Jack is talking about it in the hushed tone he reserves for Cairo or Bishop.  _ It was bad. _

“Ah, now, now, wait a minute. Just stop it.” Saul waves his wife back, she holds up her cane menacingly anyway. “If you guys are really U.S. agents, where's your badges?” Mac hands his over, and the man stares at it for a couple seconds. “See here, sonny, this says you work for a ‘think tank’.”

“Yeah, we don't exactly work for an agency that goes around handing out official I. D.s, but I promise you both, we're the good guys.” Mac’s been over this far too many times.  _ You get used to defending yourself when you need to explain to countless people who see your name when you use your credit card or have to show your driver’s license that you’re not really a dangerous criminal who decided to blow up a building and kill a man.  _

“Well, why should I believe you?”

Jack is clearly tired of this. “Because I have a gun and didn't shoot you.”

Saul nods and turns to his wife. “Now-now that's a fair point he's making there.”

“Oh, Saul, are you out of your mind?”

“It's a very...What?” Saul snaps. 

“You're always so trusting!”

“Stop attacking my character!” Mac shakes his head with a small grin. 

“Oh, what about that time you trusted your friend Gary to paint the house?” Mac knows old arguments when he hears them.  _ This sounds more like Jack and Matty than Riley now… _

“Gary gave me a good deal on that paint.”

“Because it was  _ lime green _ !” 

“There's no such thing as a good deal on house paint. Or wall tile,” Jack adds, very unhelpfully. 

Saul rounds on him with an angry glare. “Oh, go away.”

“Yes, sir.” Jack retreats into the cockpit, still rubbing the side of his head. 

Saul is still in an argumentative mood. “Listen here, Edith, you stop pushing my buttons.”

Mac closes the door to the cockpit, cutting the argument in the passenger compartment to a low buzz of voices. Jack is standing off to the side, clenching and unclenching his fists. Mac knows this look, it’s the look Jack gets whenever someone talks about Murdoc. Or James. Or, he remembers vaguely, Nick Carpenter.  _ Whoever this Tiger guy is, he hurt Riley. Bad.  _

“Jack?”

The man looks up, as if Mac startled him. “What is it, kiddo?”

“Are you okay?”

“I will be when we catch up to that son of a bitch and I put a bullet in him.” Jack sighs. “You weren’t there for it, kiddo, and I don’t wanna say more than Riley would want me to, but...let’s just say this dude is Riley’s Murdoc and leave it at that, huh?” Mac nods. He could have figured that much out himself. And he can respect Riley not wanting to talk about it.  _ If it hadn’t been for Bishop, I would have tried my hardest to keep them from ever finding out about what happened in CCI. _ He and Riley deal with trauma by trying to bury it.  _ Not the best method, but also not one you want to interfere with. _

The best thing he can do for her now is help Jack put this guy in a dark hole. “Hey guys, how are we looking on that projected flight path?”

“Still too many targets, and we don’t know the Tiger well enough to know what he or someone pulling his puppet strings would want to hit.” Riley’s voice is just a tiny bit choked. Mac knows that sound all too well. It’s the sound of someone being forced to relive their worst nightmare. Coming face to face with someone who tormented them.  _ I know how terrible it feels, and I wish that no one else ever had to live with that.  _

When she speaks up again, it sounds like Riley’s gotten her emotions under control. “That jet just started gaining altitude. Can you confirm visually?” 

“Yeah. These guys are climbing fast, but the real question is why.”

The door to the passenger compartment opens, and Saul pushes his way inside with them, leaning forward to look out the windshield. “They're gonna jump,” He says.

“What?” Mac asks.

“That's a spiral climb. We did dozens of them in Jump School.” Mac hears the same kind of pride in the man’s voice as he hears in Jack’s when the man talks about his Army days.

Jack grins. “You got your jump wings.”

“'69 Fort Benning, 75th Infantry, "C" Company. Fought two tours in Vietnam.” The man smiles sadly, then glances at Mac. “Wasn’t no older than you, kid.” 

“So you were Army Rangers?” Jack asks.

“Rangers always lead the way, son.”

“Yes, sir.” 

“Anyway, I'm taking Edith to all the places I wrote her letters from during the war.” Saul looks at Mac curiously. “You know, I was thinkin’ you looked familiar, and thinkin’ bout ‘Nam brought it all back. You don’t happen by any chance to be related to a fella by the name Summers who worked handlin’ napalm, do ya?”  _ Not that I know of, but it wouldn’t be the strangest thing a relative has ever done.  _ Mac kind of wishes he was.  _ I bet that guy was a lot better man than James.  _

Jack shakes his head. “Well, he can  _ make  _ napalm outta soap and some other weird stuff, but his name’s MacGyver, so I guess you’re outta luck.”

Mac nods. “But maybe someday I’ll meet him.” He grins. “Hopefully in a less exciting way than I met you.”

“Guy who worked with napalm for a living? I doubt it.” Jack says.  _ Knowing us we’ll run across him the day I decide to make another batch of my own. _

Saul glances out the window, where the jet they’ve followed is leveling out, continuing to move in tight circles. “Those guys you're following, they won't be on that plane much longer.”

Jack glances out the window, then turns to Mac. “Saul’s right. These guys are circling, which means they have a specific landing site in mind.”

Matty’s voice comes through comms. “Well, you're over Shanghai now, so their target's in the city. Wait. Mac, Jack, I've got a visual on six jumpers. Looks like they're headed for...Dizang Tower. Riley, track that jet and have local authorities meet it wherever it lands.”

Jack leans back toward the window, watching the black specks plummeting toward the city. “You don't just halo jump onto a hundred and twenty-eight story building just to say you did it. Whatever Tony the Tiger plans to do with that EMP, I think he's about to do it now.”

Mac can hear the soft click-thump of Matty’s shoes on the floor of the War Room. She’s pacing, an action reserved for very bad situations. “Riley, I need eyes inside that tower. Bozer, I need you to make me a list of everything in that building worth all this trouble. Cage, if you know anything about it that won’t be on official lists, tell us now.”

“We got to get to the ground now,” Mac says.  _ I really don’t want to jump, but if that’s our only choice…  _ At least there won’t be trees like there were in Romania. He hasn’t had to do a paradrop since that disaster, and he was kind of hoping to avoid them a little longer. 

Jack nods. “We got to get to the ground, like, right now. They already have a really big head start on us. Let's go, Captain. Get us down.”  _ Oh good. We’re not parachuting. _ Not that somehow landing a jet in a city sounds a whole lot safer. 

The woman stares at all of them. “Sorry to be the lone voice of reason here, fellas, but we are nowhere near a runway.”

“Well, it sounds like you just became the master of improvisation. Get us down, Captain, right now,” Jack says, then turns to Saul “You and Edith should get buckled up. We're gonna put this thing down and it's gonna get bumpy. Mac, come on, let’s get you in a seatbelt too.” Mac shakes his head and follows.

“Are you sure we’re not going to die?” Edith asks as the jet starts to descend.

“We’re not going to die. These people know what they’re doing.” Saul reaches over and takes his wife’s hand, holding it tightly. Mac smiles. 

* * *

ONE BUMPY EXPRESSWAY LANDING LATER

Jack rushes up to the driver of one of the cars that’s stopped to stare at a jet plane parked in the middle of a six lane road.  _ Oh, come on, man, this is the most interesting thing in your day? _ Jack shakes his head.  _ Man I’d never make it as a civilian.  _

He racks his brain for what he knows of Chinese, remembering Steve translating for them, and then ribbing him endlessly, back when they found those Chinese mercs in that building in Hawaii. 

_ “Come on, Jack, seriously? You can’t even ask where to find the nearest car rental? That’s not ‘rusty’. That’s nonexistent.”   _

_ “I can order food and find the bathroom, I think that’s sufficient language skills for any country.”  _

Jack really does know more than  _ just _ those two things. Still, he’s made an effort to brush up.  _ I really ought to go see Steve again. It’s been over a year, and I did promise I’d try to stay in touch a little more. _ But with this James thing hanging over their heads, it’s been hard to think about taking a vacation of any kind. 

The driver starts yelling at Jack, and it’s hopelessly too fast to follow. Jack rattles off the first excuse that comes to him, and the driver’s eyes widen and he jumps out of the car. Jack motions to Mac to climb in the other side, turns them around with some difficulty, and drives off. 

“What'd you tell him?” Mac asks.

“I told him that your wife's having a baby at the hospital.”

“Oh.”

“Hey, man, it was the best I could do on short notice. Wife, baby, and hospital are things you learn in like the first few chapters of ‘Teach Yourself Easy Mandarin’. You know, all those language course things teach you how to talk about family and what to say in emergencies, right away.” Jack grins. “I mean, it’s possible I said  _ you _ were having a baby, but I don’t think so.”

“Great.” Mac shakes his head.  _ Sorry, kid, I really was trying, and it got us a ride. _ “Hey, Riley, we're about five minutes out from, uh, Dizang tower. Do you know where...uh, where the Tiger and his men are?”

“I just got into the tower security system. Looking now.” Jack has heard that shudder in Riley’s voice exactly fourteen times in the last six years. None of them have been good missions. “Got them. They're in the northeast stairwell heading down. They just passed the 100th floor.”

Jack pulls the car into a parking space and jumps out. “Bozer, Cage, how are we doing on that list of potential targets?” 

“Uh, good,” Bozer says. “A little too good, honestly. The whole building is filled with high profile targets. There's a Japanese embassy, a military tech company, six hedge funds, over a dozen banks.”

“Fist of Power is politically motivated. My money’s on the embassy,” Cage says.  _ She wasn’t there for Nepal, but there’s no way she lived with Riley for a year and doesn’t know the truth of what happened. _

“Yeah, well, Sam, you just lost your bet. They just exited the stairwell on the 90th floor. Nowhere near the embassy,” Riley says. 

Jack pulls open the lobby door, lets Mac in, and follows him to the elevator. “Yeah, okay, and do we know what's on the 90th floor exactly?” 

“No clue,” Bozer says. “It isn't labeled on the building's public directory.”

Cage speaks up. “That's because the entire floor is a private residence. It belongs to an American businessman named Ralph Jerico.”

“You mean Ralph Jerico the billionaire?” 

Bozer chuckles. “How many non-billionaires do you know that own their own floor of the building?” 

“Cage is right,” Matty says. “Jerico’s made enough of a name for himself that the CIA has people watching his accounts and travel plans.The man's made his fortune in international finance. He has homes all over the world, but guess which home he's in this week?”

“The one on the 90th floor?” Mac asks. 

“Bingo. He's in town for the Chinese Economic Summit.”

Jack shrugs.  _ If I had that much money, I wouldn’t buy space in this place. This elevator is  _ slow. “Yeah, so, what's the deal, Matty? Are these cats working for Jerico? Is he the one giving the Tiger his marching orders now?”  

“As far as I, and the CIA, can tell, Ralph Jerico appears to be an honest businessman, with no ties to any terrorist groups, let alone Fist of Power,” Matty says. “We’re continuing to comb through his financials, but we can’t find any evidence of him working with these people.”

Riley cuts into the conversation. “Uh, guys, the Tiger and his men definitely don't work for Jerico. They just took out two of his guards.”

“And now they're putting a shaped charge on his front door,” Bozer adds. 

“So what is this? Is this, is this a hit?” Jack asks. 

“Maybe not,” Matty says. “Jerico's known for not trusting banks. He keeps the majority of his fortune in portable assets, preferably gold and diamonds.” 

Jack can hear Riley typing. “Looks like he just had a huge new safe installed with biometric and electronic locks. The kind of lock you need electromagnetic pulse to beat.”

“Wait. Wait, wait, wait. So this is a heist?” 

“It looks that way,” Matty says. “And I don't know about you, but I don't want to see what Fist of Power can do with millions in untraceable wealth.”

Riley’s voice comes through, shaking again. “Guys, they're putting all their electronics in a Faraday bag. They're gonna blow the EMP. Hold on to something now.”

“Seriously?” Jack asks, pressing the button for the floor just above them and gripping the elevator railing. 

Mac nods, leaning his head back against the wall. “They're about to send this whole building to the Stone Age.” And then the elevator jolts and goes black. 

* * *

SHANGHAI, CHINA

THEY ACTUALLY LANDED AT AN AIRPORT

Sam whips the car around a slow-moving public transit bus, swerving again to avoid a group of pedestrians. Matty’s voice in her ear is giving them the play by play of what’s happening on her end. 

“We still have no contact with Mac or Jack, the EMP fried their phones, comms, and any other method of communication. That doesn’t mean we’re out of options.  The tower may be dark, but the city is not. We’re getting live feeds from every surveillance, traffic and ATM camera in the area.” Cage can hear chatter in the background, Matty must have moved to the situation room to be on top of what’s happening. “Riley, Bozer, what's your status?”

Bozer, the only one currently not hyperfixated on a task, answers. “We're 20 minutes out, Matty.”

Sam curses as a small electric car cuts  _ her _ off. “Get out of the way,  _ drongo! _ ”

“You know, uh, depending on traffic,” Bozer mumbles.  _ Oh, I can make it fifteen. _ Sam guns the SUV and whips it into a narrow gap in the fast lane. 

“Okay, Riley, I really need eyes inside that building. We are flying blind here,” Matty says. 

“Yeah, I'm trying, Matty, but everything in there is fried. It would take a miracle for us…”

“Okay, then you're just gonna have to pull off a miracle, Riley, okay? Our boys are outgunned, outnumbered and literally in the dark. And our best hope at helping them survive this is you.”

“I know.” Riley says, and then switches her comms off. “And if they get killed, that’s on me.”

“Riley.” Sam turns slightly to face her, letting her speed drop just a little, and takes a deep breath. “You can do this. Just because the Tiger’s here, doesn’t mean you’re the same person you were all those years ago. Remember Tennant?” Riley nods. “I hid in the darkest corners because I was afraid of what he could do to me, and to everyone I cared about. But the only thing that mattered in the end was whether I could take him down. Whether I could go toe to toe with my worst nightmare and come out on top. And you can.” 

Riley nods. “I just don’t know what to do.” She glances up at the building looming ahead of them, already visible against the skyline. “If he gets his hands on Jack, or Mac, I know what he’ll do to them.” 

“Then we have to stop him first.”

Riley swallows and brushes a hand over her face. “Every camera, phone, TV, computer, and even smartwatch in that tower is dead. I can’t undo that.” Riley whispers, shaking her hands out above her rig’s keyboard. 

“So stop focusing on what you can’t fix, and start thinking of what you still have to work with,” Sam says.  _ And both of us know I’m not just talking about a few dead computers.  _ The spy game is a tough life, and everyone picks up some dents and scratches along the way. But what defines a good agent is their ability to pick themselves up and keep going.

_ It’s not that the Tiger tortured her. _ Sam has seen Riley take down more than one person who left her a few scars to remember them by.  _ It’s that he killed her team, and she still blames herself. _ As far as Riley’s come since then, that memory is still one that was created in the mind of a naive junior agent.  _ Which means every time she thinks of it, the emotions she had then come back too. _ Sam’s job is to get her to process that, move past it, and get the job done  _ today. _

And if the look in Riley’s eyes is anything to go on, it’s working. “Hey, Matty. I think I just thought of a way to deliver up that miracle you asked for. Now, it's entirely theoretical because it's never been done on a scale like this before, but I think I can…”

“Riley, don't explain. Just type. Fast.”  

* * *

DIZANG TOWER

NOT QUITE THE STONE AGE BUT CLOSE

Jack grunts as the elevator doors slide open. Thanks to him pushing the button for the next floor, the elevator made it there and stopped briefly just before the power went out.  _ At least we weren’t in the middle. _ Jack hates having to crawl out of elevators that are stuck in weird places.  _ I’d rather have to go up than down on the way out. Falling to the floor sucks. Wait, what does it say about my life that I actually have a preference about that? _

He can tell Mac’s not too happy in the dark, enclosed space.  _ It has to feel a little bit like a cell to him. _ The kid’s flinched every time Jack touches him accidentally. He’s trying to keep Mac’s mind on other things, just to keep him from having a panic attack in here. “Hey, wait a minute. So you're telling me all my great airplane chase selfies are just gone?” 

“Yes. An EMP doesn't just turn off the power, Jack. It burns the wires right off the silicon.” They manage to force the doors open enough to step out...right into a tide of chattering, nervous office employees heading for the stairs. “So, anything within the blast radius that's electronic is dead forever.”

“It's not cool, dude.”

“But, hey, my phone’s dead too, so for once you’re not the only one who lost theirs on a mission. And it’s not my fault you need a new one.” 

Jack will concede that point. “I guess I could keep it and throw it at one of those goons if I see them.” He shoves the phone back in his pocket.  _ Actually, Mac will probably want it for something.  _

Mac squints at the wall where the floor number is written, tracing over it with his fingers to assure himself he’s read it properly. “All right, so we're forty floors below Jerico's penthouse.”

“Okay, so the elevator is dead. The Tiger and his slow bus armada are gonna have to take the stairwell down.” Jack glances toward the still-steady stream of evacuees. “The problem is we have no earthly idea which stairwell they're gonna take, man.”

“You know what, I don't think he's gonna take any of them, at least not yet.”

“What makes you say that?” 

“Well, think about it. Commandos coming down, fully tacced up, carrying bags of gold and diamonds. Not exactly low profile. They'll wait for the stairwell to clear. Then they'll make their move.”

“Which will give us plenty of time to go up there and head them off. Yeah.” Jack glances at the stairwell door. “This counts as my cardio for the day, right?” 

“Forty floors, fighting a sea of scared people the whole way up? Yeah, I think so.” Mac bites his lip. “You know what? Actually, it's gonna be easier if we can see. Let me make something real quick.”

Jack shakes his head as the kid steals a roll of paper towel from a kitchenette, soaks it in hand sanitizer, and shoves the whole thing into a vase. He tosses the handful of fake flowers the vase was holding to Jack. 

“Hey, does this mean I’m the next one to get married?” Jack asks. 

“Only if you plan on proposing to a Nepalese terrorist with those,” Mac says. “You can just throw them away. I just wanted to see what you’d do if I threw them at you.” Jack sighs, tossing the flowers in a trash can.  _ Mac, sometimes you’re such a child. _ But then again, Jack is about to act a little like a teenage fangirl… 

“Hey, you know what this is reminding me of? Hmm? Huh?”

Mac chuckles, striking his knife against the flint he just pulled out of his pocket.  _ It is the stone age after all _ . “You know, I was thinking about it but I wasn't gonna say anything. A bunch of terrorists taking over a high-rise so they can pull off a bank robbery? It's…

“No, no, no, wait, wait, wait. If anybody's gonna say it, it's gonna be me.”

“Knock yourself out.”

“It's _Die Hard_ , baby. Oh, my God.”

"Welcome to the party, pal."  Mac’s Bruce Willis impression isn’t the best Jack’s heard, but it’s not the worst either. 

“I’m gonna re-enact Die Hard twice in my life, who can say that?”  _ I thought that Christmas party was it. Really did. Man, Patty’s gonna have a field day with these mission reports. _

Mac is still chuckling. “Uh, John McClane? There’s like a billion sequels. Which you have made me watch. Every. Single. One.” 

“Hey! _Die Hard_ is a  _ classic _ . And Bruce Willis is the  _ man. _ ”

Mac holds up his makeshift torch, now burning brightly. “Yeah, well, let's make Bruce Willis proud.”

* * *

90TH FLOOR

MAC HAS ABOUT THAT MANY BRUISES

“You’d think they’d know better than to slam into someone carrying open flames,” Mac grumbles as he pushes open the stairwell door. His ribs ache, and so does his left knee. Or at least those are the most painful bruises. They’re kind of masking everything else at this point. 

“Not sure they had much of a choice,” Jack says. “Man, Chinese stairwells are narrow.” He’s massaging his elbow, he caught it on the railing at the 71st floor and he’s been complaining about his funny bone ever since. 

Mac glances around the corner, the hallway looks deserted. "Come out to the coast. We'll get together, have a few laughs," He whispers. 

“Nice,” Jack says with a chuckle. But any chance of laughter stops when they catch sight of the two dead men on the floor outside the ruined door. Blood is pooling around the bodies, and Mac shudders as they walk past. 

Jack is on edge as he clears the suite, finger over the trigger rather than along the guard of it.  _ He’s not taking chances with these guys.  _ When they come up empty, he lowers the gun and sighs. “Hey. There's nobody here, man. They must have already hit the safe and split.”

Mac frowns, pulling a picture away from the wall to reveal an untouched safe behind it. “Well, you were half right. But the safe's still intact. They didn't even open it.”

“What?” Jack asks, jogging over to see. “Well, if they didn't grab Jerico's diamonds, then what'd they take?”

There’s a low thrumming sound out the window that catches Mac’s attention. And when he turns around, there’s a black chopper coming in low over the city, clearly heading for the roof of Dizang tower. 

“Whatever it was, they're about to fly away with it. Exfil wasn't on the ground, it was on the roof.” He glances from the chopper to Jack.  _ Now what are we going to do? _ Their whole plan depending on being able to catch up to these guys  _ before _ they got out of the building.  _ How do I tell Riley I let these people who hurt her get away? _ He knows she would never guilt him for that, any more than he would her if she had to tell him she lost Murdoc when they almost had him, but he’s still going to feel awful.

“No way we're making it to the roof before that chopper does,” Jack says. “But maybe we don’t have to. Step aside.”

Jack flings an office chair at the glass, and Mac shakes his head as it bounces off without leaving so much as a crack. Jack shakes his head, looking utterly confused. “That worked in Die Hard.”

“Yeah, 'cause that was a movie. In real life, skyscraper windows are heavily reinforced.”

“I am not letting this guy get away from us again.” Jack’s voice is eerily determined. And then Mac ducks as Jack starts shooting the window. 

It takes three bullets to break the glass, but the next two somehow manage to find their mark. Mac sees a plume of black smoke rise from the chopper, and watches it bank and fly back in the direction it came from, wobbling and losing altitude by the minute. 

“Well, they're gonna be coming down the staircase now,” Jack says. “We just need to figure out which one.” 

They step into the hall, and then Jack stops, holding up his hand to ask Mac to do the same.  _ He’s listening.  _ And sure enough, now that there’s no sound but their breathing and heartbeats, Mac can hear the clump of tac boots on stairs. 

“This way,” Jack whispers. Mac knows the man will be right, he’s been doing this for too long to make mistakes about something like this. And sure enough, when they slowly open the stairwell door, Mac can hear the echoing sounds above them. 

“Now we need to quickly, quickly come up with a way to stop a commando death squad,” Jack mumbles. “Come on, Jack! What would John McClane do?” Mac is seriously afraid the man wants to go up there and charge them all with half a mag in his handgun.  _ He loses his already shaky sense of self preservation entirely when he’s worried about Riley or me.  _

“Hey, how about you lure them down there, I figure out what they took, and steal it back?”  

“Okay. As long as I get to bust some noses eventually.”

“Yeah, all right.” Mac sighs. 

Jack shouts upward into the stairway. “Hey, Tony the Tiger! What's the problem? Did I ruin your little roof party? I tell you what, come on down to 87 and we'll hug it out.” He winks at Mac. 

“Very McClane,” Mac says, giving him a thumbs up before stepping back into the stairwell, reaching for the fire extinguisher on the wall. 

“Just a fly in the ointment, Hans. Just a monkey in the wrench. Just a pain in the…”

Mac cuts him off.

“Hey, hey, hey. We don't have time for the whole thing.” Still, he finds it deeply amusing that Jack can be such a nerd about specific things.  _ Die Hard is his favorite, but heaven help the person who tries to out-trivia him when it comes to Star Wars or Indiana Jones. _ Bozer attempted it once and gave up in defeat, the first time Mac saw someone know more about a movie franchise than his roommate did.  

“Yeah, okay, sorry.” Jack continues down the steps, and Mac ducks back in the doorway, hoping he disappears into the shadows.  _ At least I’m not wearing a light-colored shirt.  _

Soon enough, the mercs start to pass him, thudding down the stairs. “One, two, three, four, five…” Mac whispers under his breath. All of them are empty handed aside from truly menacing assault rifles and one EMP.  _ Whatever they took, the last guy’s got it. _ Mac wonders what was so valuable, and yet small enough, for that. And then he doesn’t have to wonder anymore, because the last merc stumbles down the stairs, shoving someone smaller ahead of him.  _ That’s a kid. _

Mac is so shocked he hesitates, and that hesitation is his undoing. Before he can whack the guy in the head with the fire extinguisher, the man has his gun to the kid’s head. 

“One more step and he's dead.” Mac takes a shaky breath.  _ You can’t screw this up now. _

* * *

Bozer hates sitting outside places. Granted, that’s more or less his role, the man in the van while his team does the dirty work, but he still doesn’t like knowing he’s helpless to save them if something goes wrong.

It looks like Riley is, if possible, even more upset than Bozer. She’s ripping a bunch of the ruined tech stuff she scrounged from evacuating employees.  _ Well, scrounged is a nice way of saying told them it got fried and they might as well hand it to her. _ Very few of them argued. 

She’s ripping out pieces of metal and stuff and twisting them together with things Cage ‘requisitioned’ from a tech supply store down the street. Apparently there’s one on every other corner in this city.  _ She’s pretty sure the guy was dealing in computers with counterfeit components too, when she said she was with a government inspection and needed to confiscate some things, he apparently acted real sketchy.  _ But if it does the job, Bozer doesn’t care if it’s Apple, Toshiba, or back-of-a-car knockoff. 

“Looks like security has finished evacuating the tenants, but I don't see any sign of Mac, Jack, or the Tiger’s men.”

“Me either.” Cage jogs up to the van, she was doing a perimeter sweep. Riley looks up, then grabs the stack of things she’s been working on, opens the door of the vehicle, and bolts across teh parking lot.

“Riley, how's that miracle coming?” Matty asks.

“Uh, Matty, she just threw open the door and ran out of our SUV.”

Matty doesn’t even sound surprised.  _ I guess when I shouldn’t be either, that’s a lot tamer than most of Mac and Jack’s stunts.  _ “Well, hopefully whatever it is she's doing gets us eyes inside that building. I need to know what's going on in there right now.”

Riley runs back a few minutes later, her hair now loose from the ponytail it was in, falling into her face. “Okay, base antennas are set. All I have to do is daisy-chain the surrounding buildings' Wi-Fi and…”

“Anything I can do to help?” Bozer asks. 

“Pray.” Riley takes a deep breath, and then jumps about a mile when the radio on the console crackles to life. Bozer grabs it. 

Jack’s voice coming out sounds like an answer to that prayer Riley asked for. “Riley, Bozer? Bozer, Cage you there? Hey, you copy?” 

“Hell yeah we do, Jack,” Bozer says. “Where are you guys?”

“Uh, I’m on the 87th floor,” Jack says, and there’s a strange rasp to his breathing that Bozer knows from experience with Mac means there’s some kind of injury. “I-I think I'm playing cat and mouse with these hombres. I just wet-noodled one and took his walkie. But, uh, I have no earthly idea where Mac is.” Bozer hands the radio over wordlessly when Riley grabs for it. Her fingers are white-knuckled where she’s clenching it. 

“We, uh, we had to split up.”

“Did you get the EMP back?” Cage asks. 

“Well, no, not yet.”

“What about Jerico's diamonds?” Matty asks. 

“I don't think this is about diamonds, Matty. Jerico's safe was locked up tight. The Tiger must be trying to steal something else.” He sighs. “But...uh, figuring that out was Mac’s part of the plan.” 

“Actually, I think I may have the answer,” Matty says. “Ralph Jerico just might be the most heavily insured person on the planet. Home, fire, earthquake. Even a kidnap and ransom policy he took out on his only child, Ethan.”

“Ouch,” Jack says. “See, this is why I’m not rich.” 

“Actually, Jack, if you had a policy out on Mac and me, you’d probably make bank,” Riley says. Bozer shakes his head.  _ She and Jack have the same dark humor. _

Matty cuts off whatever retort Jack is about to make. “As a condition of this sizeable K&R policy, Jerico had to agree to chip his son with a GPS locater.”

“So The Tiger uses the EMP to knock out the chip so the kid can't be tracked.” Cage leans against the hood of the SUV, looking up at the building. 

“This is bad,” Bozer says. 

“Hell yeah this is bad,” Jack says. “Because if they get Ethan out of the building, we may never see that kid again.”

* * *

Mac swallows, feeling his grip on the fire extinguisher slide slightly as his palms grow sweaty.  _ I can’t let him walk away with this kid, but I can’t be responsible for getting him killed, either.  _

“Don't do anything stupid,” he chokes out, then realizes that argument is dumb. These guys already killed a whole bunch of people, stole an EMP, and kidnapped a child. Another death is probably nothing to them. 

It seems the guy he’s staring down has the same idea. “Take one more step and I pull this trigger.”

“Look, you can’t get what you want if the kid gets hurt. Put the gun down.” He may not be able to appeal to this guy’s sense of humanity, but maybe he can appeal to his sense of greed. He fumbles for the pin of the fire extinguisher. There’s no way he can close the distance between him and this guy before the man either runs or pulls the trigger, but pressurized spray foam just might be able to do the trick. 

“I'll do it,” the man says. “Back off. Back off!”

And then Mac sprays him in the face with the fire extinguisher. He feels the kid dash past his legs as the gun goes off. The shot must go wild, he can hear it ricocheting off something in the stairwell. He doesn’t wait to find out what happened, just slams the door and runs off after the kid. 

He only catches up to the boy after he’s run half the length of the hallway. Mac grabs him up by the waist, pulling him toward a janitorial closet in the hallway. “Hey, let me go!” The boy shouts, and Mac claps his hand over the kid’s mouth, earning himself a painful bite for his trouble.  _ I mean, I wouldn’t really react well to being grabbed and pulled around after being kidnapped either, so I’ll give him that one.  _ He pulls them both in the closet and shuts the door most of the way, so it isn’t completely pitch black. 

Mac takes a deep breath and tries to summon up his best imitation of Jack’s ‘spooked horse’ voice. “Hey, hey, hey. You don't have to fight me. I'm on your side.”

The kid nods slightly, his jaw relaxing, and Mac pulls his hand away. “Okay. Now, what's your name?”

“Ethan. Ethan  _ Jerico _ ,” The boy spits out angrily. “And if you hurt me, my dad will destroy you.”

Mac sighs.  _ Great. This is what I was afraid of. _ He was pretty sure the kid was Jerico’s. He was hoping for a little less entitlement. “First of all, I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm here to save you. You're  _ welcome _ . Second of all, your dad is Ralph Jerico?”

“Duh! Who the hell are you?” The kid shouts. Mac sighs. 

“I'm MacGyver. I'm here to rescue you.”

“MacGyver? That doesn't sound like a real name. Let's see some I.D.”  _ At least he didn’t know who I was already.  _

“That's the second time today someone's asked me for I.D.” Mac hands him his Phoenix I.D., and the kid looks distinctly unimpressed, squinting at the writing in the darkness. 

“The Phoenix Foundation? That doesn’t sound like a real place. You made that up.”  _ Well, technically I kinda did, it was my alter ego… _ Mac knows it sounds a little strange.  _ But at least we’re not doing this op with one of Jack’s sets of ridiculous code names. _ He can’t imagine having to introduce himself as Randall Snyder again. 

“Look, Ethan, you're just gonna have to trust me.”

Clearly the kid doesn’t. Because he starts yelling again. “Help! Someone help me!”

Mac clamps his hand over the kid’s mouth again. “Hey, man, you want the guys with the big guns to find us?”

“Aren't you just another guy with a gun?”

“No. Kind of the opposite, actually.” Mac pulls out his SAK and holds it up. Ethan blinks. “This is all I carry.” Mac puts the knife in the kid’s hand for a second.

Ethan holds it up, eyes wide and scared in the darkness.“Y-you know those guys have guns, right? Like, like big guns, dude.” He hands Mac’s knife back. 

“Shh. Yeah, I noticed.” Mac sighs. “Okay, look, I'm gonna get you out of here. But to do that, I gotta think. And in order to think, I need to know that when I turn my back, you're not gonna scream. Or run. Because if you do either one of those, those guys with the big guns are gonna catch you again. And I promise you, you don't want that. So we cool?” 

Ethan hesitates, then nods. Mac breathes a small sigh of relief and glances around him.  _ Okay, now what? _

* * *

Matty paces impatiently while Ralph Jerico’s phone rings.  _ I’m sure he’s preoccupied worrying about his son and trying everything to find out what’s happening. But I could tell him if he’d just pick up the damn phone.  _

She of all people can understand that fear for a child.  _ Not that, back then, I was willing to admit Riley was like a daughter to me. _ But when the Tiger had her, there was no door Matty wouldn’t have kicked down, no bridge she wouldn’t have burned, to get her back.  _ And Jack would have done the same. _ So she can be patient with this man. At least a little.

Still, her patience is wearing thin by the time a voice answers. 

“Hello? This is Ralph Jerico.” She can hear the barely controlled panic in his voice. 

She stays calm and grounded. It will help him focus too. “Mr. Jerico, my name is Matilda Webber, and I work for the United States government. Thirty minutes ago, a team of six armed men knocked the power out in your building and abducted your son.”

“Is this a ransom call?”

“Absolutely not, Mr. Jerico. I have two operatives working inside the tower to save your son, but we're working with limited information. I’m going to hand you over now to our negotiator, Samantha Cage. She’s your best bet of getting your son back, I guarantee you.” 

She hears Sam come on the line, the soft lilt of her accent clearly calculated to just the point that it sounds reassuring. 

“Mr. Jerico, I’m Samantha Cage. I’m a negotiation expert and I’m here to help you get your son back alive.  So I need you to help me figure out exactly what these kidnappers want.”

_ It’s amazing what that woman can turn herself into. _ She was absolutely right, she can be someone’s best friend or worst nightmare.  _ And do both with a smile on her face. _ Matty’s just glad the woman’s on their side. 

“They haven’t called and asked for anything yet, I swear,” Jerico says. 

“I believe you.”  _ They didn’t tell him not to talk to police. Sam would have seen through that in a second.  _ “The men who have your son are part of a terrorist group called the Fist of Power. Do you know anything about them?”

“Oh god.” Jerico’s voice goes rough and choked. “I know exactly what they want.”

“Then you need to tell us, now, so we can make our next move.”

Matty jots down the information as Cage works it out of the man, and then opens comms to Riley and Bozer while shutting down her connection to Sam, who’s still on the line with Jerico.  _ She has to keep him from wanting to make contact himself.  _

“Well, thanks to Cage’s conversation with Mr. Jerico, we know exactly what the Tiger wants.” 

“What’s that?” Riley and Jack ask in unison. Jack’s voice is tinny through a radio connection. 

“His brother, known only as the Fist, who you two managed to bring in five years ago. He’s just been remanded to the Malaysian authorities for crimes in their nation, and since Jerico has major holdings and plenty of clout with the government…”

“Tony the Tiger and his guys want him to get their leader released.” 

“More accurately, I think  _ he _ told them that’s the plan.” Matty says. “It seems the Fist got hold of some communication device when he was transferred from CIA custody two weeks ago and started contacting his brother, advising him of a plan to get him out. He’s constantly being moved to various secure locations, he would know a direct assault to break him out is useless. But with Jerico’s influence, he could get released. These guys contacted Jerico asking him for help, and Jerico refused.”

“I guess the Tiger is done asking nicely. So one phone call from our billionaire friend could end this whole thing?”

“Yes, which is why I have Cage on the line with him now, convincing him not to make that call until we confirm we have his son. She convinced Jerico to give us a half an hour, but unless he has proof that his son is safe in 29 minutes, 18 seconds and counting, he will make that phone call. So, I need to know where Mac and Ethan are right now.”

“I know that, Matty. I'm not stupid. But I don't know how to find him if I don't know where to look.”

* * *

Riley breathes a shaky sigh of relief as the signals all begin coming to her computer at once, and a slightly blurry image pops up on the screen. “Hey, Matty, remember that miracle you asked for? Check this out.” She shares her screen the the War Room, and lets out a shaky half-laugh at the success. 

“Did you just X-ray the entire Dizang Tower?” Matty asks.

“Sort of. Since every cam in the building's fried, I used Wi-Fi signals from nearby buildings to build a radar image of what's going on in there.”

“You mean like the thing Morgan Freeman did in  _ The Dark Knight _ ?” Bozer asks.  _ Trust him to be the one to make the movie references. _ Although he’s not alone this op, Jack keeps talking about  _ Die Hard _ .

“Yeah. Before you ask, that  _ was _ real.”

Jack chuckles. “Yeah, whatever. Batgirl, use the Bat-thingy and tell me what floor he's on, pronto.”

“Unfortunately, this technique doesn't give us enough resolution to make out faces. There are three groupings of figures, and one lone one which I figure is you, right? Twenty-fourth floor?” The figure begins waving its arms and Riley shakes her head. “And...uh...those guys two floors down definitely have machine guns.”

“And...the ones on the fourth floor, that guy's holding the EMP. So, if I had to guess, those two blots heading straight down an elevator shaft are Mac and Ethan. They’re in a shaft where the elevator stopped at the fifth floor.”

“So they’ll be on the sixth. Got it.” And then Jack grunts, and Riley hears a thud and a groan. She can see that the two green blotches that were two floors down are now on Jack’s level, spread out and searching for him.  _ Well, he’s kind of got it. _ And then her heart kicks into overdrive.  _ These guys are probably listening to the radio frequencies now, they must know one of their own is down. They know where Mac and Ethan are going to be. _

Her thoughts are interrupted by a massive black van roaring up. “Looks like Shanghai SWAT just got here.” She frowns as the team ignores her and Cage stepping out of their vehicle and storms the doors of the building immediately.  _ Matty asked them to rendezvous with us and get our intel before going in.  _ She could have shown them her scan, where Mac and Jack were so they don’t get shot. 

There’s a short gasp from inside the vehicle, and then Bozer opens the door, looking slightly ill. “Yeah, Riley, I don’t think this is the SWAT team.” Bozer says. “They just shot the two security guards who came to the door.” 

“That’s more of the Tiger’s men.” 

“Yes, I can confirm that. SWAT is still en route. Whoever is at that building, it’s not them.” Matty says.

“And we’re radio silent with Jack to avoid giving away his position, so we can’t even warn him or Mac that there’s new players in the game.” Riley clenches her fists, staring at the wide-open doors. Then she turns back to the SUV, feeling the cold detachment of beginning an assault start to work its way through her blood. 

“If they just went charging in, so can I.” Riley glances at her phone. Their time is almost up, and there’s no way they’ll get Ethan back before then, not with these new players in the game. “Sam, get on the phone with Jerico. Keep him from giving in to their demands, however you have to. Stall him as long as you possibly can. Bozer, when the real SWAT teams show up, tell them where we are. Keep an eye on my scanners there.” 

Bozer looks at her wide-eyed as she grabs a handgun and rifle from a compartment behind the second row of seats, pulls out a few extra mags, and slings the rifle across her shoulder. 

“You’re going in alone?” He asks.

“I have to.” 

“Sam, shouldn’t you…”

“No. She’s right.” Sam nods to Riley and Riley can see the understanding in her friend’s eyes.  _ She knows this is about a lot more than just what happened today. She knows why I have to do it this way. _ “She’s got this.” 

* * *

Mac’s arms ache, his legs ache, and the makeshift climbing harness he tied out of fire hose is chafing in all the wrong places. He’s sweating like a horse, which isn’t helping; with the air conditioning off in the building everything is sweltering, and the elevator shaft by far feels the worst.

“I'm thirsty,” Ethan grumbles. _ So am I, kid. _ “Can I drink the stuff in the bottles?” 

“Only if you want to go to the hospital. It's not soda, it's hydrogen peroxide and bleach. When they mix together, they form something called...chemical luminescence.” Mac is trying to focus on not letting them fall to their deaths. He’s glad he found a pair of gloves in the closet he grabbed most of his supplies from, otherwise this would really, really suck.

“Boring!” Ethan says. “So, what, this is, like, your thing? You make weird stuff out of other stuff?” Mac nods slightly, it’s all the effort he can spare at the second. “That's lame. You're lame!”

Mac stops, turning slightly so he can at least partially see the kid. “Hey, maybe try being  _ slightly _ less rude to the guy saving your life.”

“Tell you what, MacGyver. When you  _ actually _ do something cool, I promise to be impressed.” _ Well, he sure isn’t Valerie. _ Mac still needs to figure out what he’s going to close his speech with. It has to be something the kids will remember. 

He’s distracted, and he pays for it. His gloved hand hits a spot where the cable is slick with grease, and he loses his grip, falling backward slightly. The rapidly tied knot holding their harness to the cable loosens at the tugging, and the whole thing starts to slide down, sending them plunging into the darkness. 

Mac gasps, they’re falling fast. Ethan yelps, clutching tighter around his neck.  _ Come on, kid, I gotta be able to breathe to fix this!  _ Mac shakes off the hazy memories of being choked on the floor of a Peruvian cell.  _ You’re not there, you’re falling to your death in an elevator shaft.  _

He tightens his arms around the cable, ignoring the sudden pain from the friction, and their descent slows. He reaches up with shaking hands, tightening the knots while still gripping the cable with his arms and thighs.  _ I’m going to feel this tomorrow.  _

Ethan’s breathing is shaky in his ears, and Mac recognizes the signs of a panic attack coming on. “Hey, it’s okay. I got you.”

“I want to get out of here.” Ethan’s voice trembles. Mac looks down into the darkness, swallowing hard. 

“Yeah, so do I.” 

It thankfully isn’t too much longer before Mac’s feet hit the solidness of something below them. He doesn’t think his legs or arms could have taken much more. He’s stiff and sore and his arms feel like jello. He can barely manage to pry the elevator door open. He has to stop with it open only a crack, but it’s enough to see the second elevator, facing them, and the number plate beside it. 

“This is as far as we go. Looks like the elevator got stuck on the fifth floor,” Mac says. He stumbles out of the makeshift harness, tossing it aside, and finally manages to wrench the door open. He steps out of the elevator...only to find a gun pointed at his face. One of the Tiger’s mercs is standing right there. 

Mac freezes.  _ We’re dead. We’re going to die. _ He pushes Ethan behind him protectively, for all the good it will probably do. And then a rattle of gunfire echoes in the hallway and the man drops. 

“Jack?” Mac asks quietly.  

“Not quite.” Riley steps out from where she was hiding in a doorway, slinging her gun back across her chest. 

“Whoa. You’re  _ cool.” _ Ethan is grinning at Riley. “Like Lara Croft.” 

Riley raises an eyebrow. “Now  _ that _ is a first.” She grins. “I could get used to that.” She glances over her shoulder. “But we should get going. They’ve figured out we’re using their radios and I...may have told Jack where you were going to be, with one of them.” She hands Mac something. “I brought both of you new comms.” 

“Thanks.” Mac slips his into his ear, wishing Jack was there on the other end as usual. 

“Bozer’s keeping me updated on Jack’s status. He’s on the next floor up, no one between us and him. We can get him and head down.”

“Can I have one of those ear things?” Ethan asks. 

“I’m sorry, I only brought enough for Mac and Jack. But…” Riley pulls out her tablet from its special pouch inside her jacket, “ _ you _ can watch this and tell us which way to go to find Jack. He’s the little green blip that I’m tracking with that red arrow above his head. Okay?”

“This is sweet.” Ethan grabs the tablet and starts tilting it around. “How are you doing this? Wait, is this an X-ray?”

“I like him,” Riley says.

“That’s because he thinks you’re cool,” Mac grumbles. 

“Oh, come on. Annabelle and Val both think you’re awesome. Can’t I have one kid who thinks  _ I’m _ the cool one?” 

“Clearly, violence impresses him more than science.” 

Riley shakes her head.  “That guy was wearing kevlar, Mac. He’s not dead. Just in a serious amount of pain.” He guesses he can give her that one.  _ She actually showed a decent amount of restraint not shooting him in the face. _

They make their way up the stairs and follow Ethan’s directions to where Jack is heading down a hallway, directly for them. His blip ducks into a corner as they get closer.  _ He heard footsteps and he doesn’t know who it’s going to be. _

Fortunately, he’s the only green blip on this level. “Hey, Jack,” Riley calls softly. “It’s us.” 

Jack steps out into the hallway. “Man, am I glad to see you guys. But Riley, what are you doin’ in here?”

“Had to save your butt,” Riley says, grinning. 

“Hey Jack,” Mac says shakily.

“Hey man. I was gettin’ a little worried.” He puts his hands on Mac’s shoulders and glances him over. Mac flinches when Jack’s hands brush over the exposed, raw skin on the inside of his arms. “What’d you do to your arms, Mac?”

“Cable burn from the elevator. It’ll heal.” Mac glances at where something is tied around Jack’s thigh. “What happened to  _ you _ ?”

“Ah, one of those dudes got in a lucky stab before I...um…” Jack glances at Ethan. “Knocked him out. It’s not vital. I’ll be fine.”

Mac wants to argue, the amount of blood saturating the man’s jeans leg and the way he’s limping are both the textbook definition of ‘not fine’. Then again, he doesn’t want to worry Ethan, and he doubts Jack’s going to die in the next ten minutes. 

“I still got enough left in me to give a big ol yippee-ki-yay to those-” 

“Shh! Got a kid present,” Mac hisses.

“Right. Sorry.”

“Who the hell is this old fart?” Ethan says sharply. 

“Old fart? Watch  _ my _ language?” 

“You're the adult,” Riley says. “Well, marginally.”

“Yeah, well, watch  _ your _ mouth, Curlicue.” He turns to Riley. “How many are left?”

Riley glances over her shoulder into the hallway. “Well, thanks to their reinforcements, there were ten guys in the building when I left the van. Now...there ought to be nine.” Riley hands him a comm and Jack slides it in his ear. 

“Hey guys, did you miss me?” he asks as his comm unit comes online. 

“Not for a minute, Dalton,” Matty chuckles. “You three hang onto that kid and get him out front, and then the  _ real _ Shanghai SWAT will storm the building. They don’t want to risk you four getting caught in the crossfire.”

“Copy that.” Mac starts to move toward the stairs again, but Bozer’s voice cuts him off. 

“Um, Riley, why is your little x-ray vision thing showing dudes putting something on a bunch of doors inside the lobby?” Bozer asks. “They’re at all the stairwells and the doors.”

Riley grabs her tablet back from Ethan and zooms them image out. “Sh-shoot.” Mac chuckles at Riley’s edited swearing. “They’re mining all the exit doors,” she whispers. “They’re going to start moving inward and try to cut us off.”

“Then we better find a way to hold ‘em off.” 

* * *

FIRST FLOOR

THIS IS PROBABLY THE MOST EXCITEMENT THIS ACCOUNTING OFFICE HAS EVER HAD IN IT

“I guess this is where we make our stand,” Mac says, pulling the door closed behind him and glancing around the room, holding up one of his glow stick bottles to see a little better by. 

Jack wishes it was something a little better than the supply room in an accounting office. But if that’s what they’re stuck with, then he’s going to make the best of it. “Well, that's fine with me. I don't mind making a stand. And if this is how I gotta go out, bein’ the Jack Dalton version of John McClane is a pretty awesome way to go. Hey Ri, will you make sure they carve “Yippee-ki-yay” on my headstone? And bury me next to Pops?”

“Jack, I am in here  _ with  _ you. I think they’ll be burying me too.” 

“We’re gonna die?” The kid...and man that’s a trip, calling someone other than Mac that...gasps. Jack shakes his head, even though Ethan probably can’t see him too well. Mac’s little glow sticks are starting to run out of juice. 

“No one’s actually gonna die, Curly. Mac here’ll come up with a plan so it's not, ya know, our last stand. He always does.”

“Yeah. On it.” Mac glances around the room, but his gaze keeps returning to Ethan. “Um, look, we're gonna get you out of here, okay? You're gonna be with your dad soon.

“Not that he'd even notice. He's too busy flying all over the world, building his empire.” There’s a disturbing amount of cynicism in that voice. Far too much for a kid that age. Jack sighs.  _ Sometimes I wonder if this is what Mac and Riley would already have been like. _

“Yeah, well, just 'cause your dad's busy doesn't mean he doesn't care about you,” Mac says, but it doesn’t sound very certain. 

“He had me chipped by the same people that put locators on his cars. I'm just another possession to him.” Jack watches Mac flinch visibly in the sickly green light.  _ Oh kiddo. _ He knows that’s how Mac describes what he was to the gangs in prison. 

_ “They owned me. All I was to them was a bargaining chip, a possession.”  _

Mac stops whatever it is he’s doing, climbs off the chair, and kneels down in front of Ethan so he’s looking the kid in the eyes. “When I was your age, my dad walked out on me and he never came back. And I was angry, just like you are.”

“So, what? Now you're gonna tell me that my dad really loves me and it's all gonna get better someday?” 

“No, I'm not gonna tell you that. I'm just gonna say that I know how you feel. It sucks and I'm sorry.” Mac glances up at Jack, his eyes suspiciously shiny. “It can take a while to find the people who really care, who’ll always have your back. But you have to let them do that and not shut them out when they come along.” 

Jack hates to break this up, Mac is giving the kid some solid life advice and also it’s so good to hear it coming from him,  _ I just hope he believes it himself, _ but this is not the time. “Fellas, fellas, fellas. No one likes an ill-timed heart-to-heart more than me, but we have some very aggressive company coming this way, and as much as I love taking shots in the dark, dude, this is a tad too literal for me.” 

“Oh, we’re not going to shoot them,” Mac says with a grin, dragging a chair with a broken wheel over under a light fixture, reaching up inside, and fiddling around with the wiring. 

“Huh? What?” Jack asks.

“You want to fill us in here?” Riley says.  

Mac jumps down off the chair and holds something out to both of them. “All right, so this is a light ballast. I need as many of these as we can find.”

“Okay, okay.” Riley grabs a set of low shelving and shoves it under the next set of fluorescents. 

Mac hands the ballast he was holding to Ethan. “Here. You take that.”

“You want me to do this?” 

“Yes. Take it.” The kid looks like Mac handed him a poisonous snake.  _ Been there done that; the kid tossed one at me in Morocco that time… _ Granted, Mac hadn’t know what it was and had been just as freaked out as Jack when he saw what he’d yanked out of the wall assuming it was electrical cord. 

Jack starts pulling apart a light as well, glancing over at Mac as he works. 

“Yeah, uh, obviously, I understand what you're building, as usual, but..but what about Small Fry here?” Jack asks, grinning. “You know? It's a teachable moment, here.”

“I know what a Faraday cage is, dumbass.”

“Hey, watch your mouth, Curly.” Jack shakes his head, but he can’t help but chuckle a little as well. _ Starting to like this kid. _ Jack wonders if it’s the defensive sarcasm or the daddy issues that won him over.  _ Seems like those are traits every kid I pick up shares. _

“Uh, yes, Ethan, it is a Faraday cage. Which will shield whatever's inside of it from the electrical energy outside of it.” Mac is stacking wire baskets, some weird metal mesh stuff that looks like it was being used as a base for wall hangers, and a couple filing cabinets together. Riley’s doing something to the wall, she keeps looking down at her tablet, then up, tracing something with her fingers. 

“I don't understand how a faraway cage is gonna stop a group of highly-trained killers from bearing down upon us with with automatic weapons and ill intent.” Jack continues, just for the heck of it.  _ Hey, he usually comes up with some pretty interesting nerd stuff. And I like hearing what he’s thinking. _

“You let him carry a gun?” Ethan says incredulously.  _ Oh hell, he is a tiny Mac.  _

“Watch your mouth,” Jack says, but there’s no bite behind it.  _ Mac thought I was a dumb knuckle dragger for months.  _

“It's a Faraday cage, Jack, and it's not.” Mac is chuckling slightly.  _ He knows I know what it is, and that I’m pushing his buttons on purpose cause it helps him think. _ “It's just gonna keep us from getting electrocuted.”

“Electrocuted?” Jack asks. 

“Yes.”

“But I thought you said the EMP knocked all of the electricity out of the building.”

Riley shakes her head. “No. It fried all the electronics in the building. The city's electrical grid is still going strong.” She sighs. “And someone pushed a storage unit in front of the fuse box. Clear safety code violation.”

“We’ll write them up later,” Jack says, moving over to help her shove the shelving out of the way.” 

Mac pulls open the box, yanks on a few things, and Jack sees some blue sparks in the dim room. “And since we are on the first floor, that means we still have power.”

“Oh, good. Let's kill those bastards,” Ethan says. 

“Easy there, Chucky!” Mac looks mildly horrified. 

“No, no, I'm with him,” Jack says, and even Riley is nodding. 

“Relax.  _ All _ of you. We're just gonna knock 'em out long enough for the cavalry to come.”

“How are we gonna get them all at once?” Jack asks.

“I think I know.” Riley grabs the radio off his belt. “Let’s give them what they want.” Jack grins. 

Jack has to admit Ethan might have a future in voice acting. The kid is _ nailing  _ the scared child voice.  _ Even I would be convinced he’s telling the truth. _ “Dad? Dad, I-I don't know if you can hear this, but I got separated from the guys who were trying to save me. I'm hiding. In an accounting office on the first floor. Are you there? Dad? Dad? Are you there?” He switches off the radio and hands it to Riley. “How’d I do?”

“Well, our green blob friends are heading this way. So I think you did really well.” Riley says. “Okay, time to get in the doghouse. Which is where I really hope we’re not going to be with Matty.” Jack crouches down, ignoring the searing pain the movement causes in his thigh, and moves so he’s partly in front of Riley, shielding her from what’s coming, even though he knows she’ll protest. He can see Mac doing the same thing with Ethan, pushing the boy to the back and using his own body to block him mostly from view. 

“What happens if your Faraday cage doesn't work?” Ethan asks.

“As a friend once said, then the rest of the day is gonna suck,” Mac whispers. 

“Indeed,” Jack says. He has his gun across his knees, just in case, and he can see Riley’s in her hand. She holds up her tablet to show Jack that the green dots are practically on top of them. And then the door flies open. 

“There they are. Don't move.” Jack hears more than sees the movement around them, the guns being readied.

“Now?” Ethan asks in a small voice.  

“Now.” And then Mac flips a switch and electricity arcs outward from the light ballasts, sizzling along the guns and tac gear of the men in the room. All of them stiffen, and Jack flinches as one who had his finger on the trigger must pull it when his muscles clench up. There’s a resounding shot, but no outcry, and Jack doesn’t feel any burn of a bullet. And then the men start collapsing. As they do, the electricity switches off again. There’s a strange snapping sound as it does, that sounds like it comes from inside the cage.  _ No, Mac said this thing would keep the electricity out.  _

“Whoa! Now that was cool!” Ethan says. 

“Hell yeah it was!” Jack chuckles.

“Language.” Riley smacks him. 

“Hey, Captain America, have you heard him talk? He's a little wolf cub.”

“Damn right I am.” The kid says. “Okay, MacGyver, you were right. That was cool. Hey, MacGyver?” Jack’s blood runs suddenly cold, and he shoves pieces of the cage out of the way to get to where Mac is slumped over, the switch in his hands damp with something dark. Jack grabs one of the weakly glowing bottles and holds it up. 

“Kiddo, hey, come on, talk to me. What happened?” Mac blinks blearily at him, pale in the green light. 

“Uh, I think one of them might have hit me,” Mac says. There’s a dark stain on his side, spreading across his shirt.

“Geez, kid, how bad is it?” Jack asks. 

“Just a graze. I...kinda shocked myself with the switch, though, cause my fingers were damp from the blood.” He blinks. “I might have sort of passed out for a second.” 

“Sort of? That fried those guys out there.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t fun.” Mac still sounds a little hazy. 

“Okay, come on, let’s get you out of here and into a hospital. Alright?” Mac nods, and Jack helps him out of the Faraday cage and onto his feet, the burning in his leg all but forgotten. “Okay, genius, let’s go.” 

* * *

Mac tries to pull his arm off Jack’s shoulders as they get to the door, but Jack isn’t having it. 

“I can walk by myself. It was a graze and a mild shock.” 

“Mild shock my ass, Mac. And your ‘graze’ is bleeding all over my jacket.”

“Yeah, well, your leg wound is bleeding all over your  _ pants. _ ”

“Had to complete the look, Mac. You know how I feel about my fashion choices.” 

They push open the doors, the light nearly blinding after all their time spent in the dark, and Ethan breaks free of Mac’s grip on his shoulder and starts to run. “Dad! Daddy!” 

Mac watches the man pick his kid up and spin him around, and suddenly feels much less self-conscious about being half-carried by Jack.  _ At least he didn’t bodily scoop me up.  _

“Ethan! Oh, gosh!” 

“Daddy.” Ethan latches onto the man’s neck, and Mac lets his own fingers tighten in Jack’s shirt collar. It’s as much of a hug as they’ll have right here, but Mac knows Jack is feeling the same relief as Ralph Jerico right now. 

“You okay?” Jerico asks 

“Yeah.”

“Yeah? Oh, I thought I lost you.”

“You probably would have if it wasn't for this guy.” Ethan turns around and points to Mac. “That's MacGyver. He's really weird, but he's also kind of cool. And this is Riley. She’s badass. Like Lara Croft but even better.” Riley grins. “And Jack...he’s alright too.” Mac sees the conspiratorial wink the kid gives Jack, and also sees that it’s returned.  _ Oh man. _ He’s seen this before.  _ I guess Jack has a soft spot for irreverent kids with daddy issues who call him an old man and backtalk him at every turn. _ It’s funny seeing what their relationship must have started as, this time as an outsider.  _ Was I really that annoying? Probably worse actually. _

“MacGyver. Riley. Jack.  Thank you so much for saving my son.”

“Of course. All in a day’s work, sir,” Jack says. 

“If there's anything I can do to repay you…”

“Uh, no. You don't owe us anything.” Mac shakes the man’s hand, making sure he’s wiped any blood off onto his pants first, and watches him turn to walk away. And he sees the defeated slump of Ethan’s shoulders and swallows hard, calling out to the man and catching him there on the steps. “Actually, you know what? There is one thing. Spend more time with your son. Make him a priority. He's a good kid. He's got a mouth on him, but he's a good kid. But for him to grow into the man that you want him to be, you gotta be around.”  _ At least Ralph Jerico’s not a monster. It’s for the best, I think, that James left. But I also think it’s for the best that these two don’t lose touch. _ “So try not to lose him again. You may never get him back. Trust me.”

“Thank you.” Jercio turns toward his car. Jack calls after the two of them.

“See you around, Curlicue.”

“See you around, old fart.”  _ Looks like Jack just added another kid to his list of adoptees. _

* * *

THIS TIME, RILEY’S THE ONE WITH THE GUN

“Remember me?” Riley asks, pulling the Tiger to his feet. The man frowns. “Well, you will.” She yanks him onto his feet, pushing him into line with his other buddies the Shanghai SWAT team is rounding up. “You’re gonna spend a lot more time in a dark little room than I did. You’ll have plenty of time to remember me. And everyone else you tortured.” 

The man’s face is still an impassive blank. “I would not remember any of you people. All of our enemies are nothing more than worms. Writhing under the boots of those who are not afraid to take what is ours.” 

“Oh, you’re going to get yours all right.” Riley digs her gun in his back a little harder than necessary as she pushes him toward the doors. 

There are vans waiting to take the prisoners away. Riley personally pushes the Tiger to his. “Enjoy the rest of your life, Tiger.”

“You know, I do remember you,” the man says. “I remember the way you  _ screamed. _ ”

“Well, you like the sound of my voice so much, let’s give you something new to remember about it. Yipee-ki-yay, you bastard,” Riley says with a sardonic grin. And then she punches him in the face.

Bozer and Cage join her while she’s still leaning against the closed door of the van, shaking out what’s very likely a sprained wrist. 

“You all set?” Cage asks, and she’s smiling slightly.

Riley nods. “Damn that felt good.”

“Does it still when you’re gonna be in a wrist brace for three weeks?” Bozer asks, glancing at the already appearing swelling and bruising. 

“Yeah. Yeah, it does.”

* * *

MISSION CITY SCIENCE FAIR

NOTHING IS ON FIRE...DANGEROUSLY

“And that, kids, is a Faraday cage in action.” Mac smiles. “And you know what my favorite thing about a Faraday cage is?” Hands go up all across the crowd, and Mac smiles at some of the wild answers. And then he sees one hand in particular. “Yes, Valerie?”

“It protects what’s inside it.”

“That is exactly right.” Mac smiles. “It protects whatever you put in there, whatever you trust it to defend. And that’s your job too. Right now, you’re learning so many important things. Things that could change the world someday. And it’s your job to use that knowledge to do good things. Things that protect other people. Because we all have choices about what we do with what we learn. We can be selfish and only do things that help us, or we can use it to help everyone around us.” 

_ James and I are the two sides of that. James used everything he knew to make himself rich. He doesn’t care who gets hurt because of the bombs and weapons he makes, just as long as he gets paid. And then there’s me. _ Mac can still feel the bruises and abrasions on his arms and legs from the elevator climb, and the sting of the bullet wound creasing his ribs. 

The crowd claps, and Mac steps down from the stage, grabbing his test item out of the much smaller Faraday cage he built this time, and handing it back to its owner. 

“Did you  _ really _ need  _ my _ phone to demonstrate it?” Mr. Ericson asks, but he’s smiling. “Jack tells me about your penchant for breaking his. Repeatedly.” 

“I knew letting you have his number was a mistake. And I promised Jack I  _ wouldn’t _ use his this time.” He grins as Jack walks up, still favoring his leg. The excuse of the day is that he twisted his knee while on a run. Mac is wearing long sleeves to hide his own injuries and trying to remember not to roll them up while he’s working.

He leaves Mr. Ericson talking to Jack, probably about more cell phone incidents, and pushes his way through the crowd, heading for the other familiar faces here.  _ I’m glad Maria agreed to do this. _ He smiles at her, and reaches down for Annabelle’s hand.  _ She’s grown so much this past year. _ “Come on, there’s someone I want you to meet.” He works his way through the crowd until he finds Val, a few stations down from her own exhibit, looking over someone else’s steam engine project and offering a few suggestions. Mac taps her shoulder to get her attention, and she turns around with a smile.

“That was so cool, Mac!” He grins. 

“Valerie, this is Annabelle Pena, she’s a friend of mine from Los Angeles. Annabelle, this is Valerie Lawson. She made the robot arm over there.”

Annabelle smiles shyly. “Want to see how it works?” Val asks, and Annabelle nods. Mac watches them walk over together.

Maria joins him, smiling. “She’s been so excited about this ever since you came and asked us to come.” She smiles. “I think she’s going to be a lot like her father. She’s already almost burned the house down setting a real fire in the garden to cook for a tea party for her stuffed animals.”

“She likes making things work,” Mac says, smiling. “And she really loves what she does, enough to do it right. Even if doing it right is...a little dangerous.”  _ Yeah, she’s a whole lot like her dad.  _

The girls are coming back now, and it looks like Val’s managed to get partially through the walls Annabelle has around herself. Mac can hear snatches of their conversation. 

“I lost my dad,” Annabelle says shyly. “A really long time ago. Years and years.” She spreads her arms out to show the span of time that, to a child, feels infinite. Mac feels his heart contract in his chest. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I lost my mom, a long time ago too.” Val puts an arm around Annabelle’s shoulders. “But you know what Dad always says?” Annabelle shakes her head, looking up solemnly with wide brown eyes. “He says when I miss her, to go to her favorite spot, sit down, and whisper, ‘I miss you’. And maybe, if I’m lucky and I listen real carefully, I’ll hear her say it back.” Mac blinks away a couple tears. He’s pretty sure that favorite spot is the old quarry lake. The one where the rock walls all around it throw strange echoes.  _ I know she knows the science behind that. But sometimes, it’s just nice to have something that you don’t explain. Something magical, something hopeful. _

Mac smiles.  _ They’re the future. _ Kids like Val, Annabelle, Ethan, they’re going to be the next Macs and Jacks and Rileys.  _ It’s up to us to train them well. _ He blinks away the thought of those kids fifteen years older, walking through the halls of the Phoenix as a team. _ Whatever they do, they’re going to change the world. I just know it. _


	22. Wind+Water

###  221-Wind+Water

LOS ANGELES

NOVEMBER 2010

_ Mac leans against the wall next to the fire escape, taking a few shaky breaths that taste like smoke and blood. He’s four blocks away from the former drug cache by now, but he can’t shake the smell, or the pain.  _

It was a little more heavily guarded than I was expecting. _ And one of the cartel guys got a lucky stab in before Mac’s homemade napalm went up and distracted them all.  _ I should have turned around when I saw how many of them there were. _ He chokes back a whimper of pain; if anyone is still chasing him, he doesn’t need to help them find him.  _ They could probably just follow the blood. __

_ He gasps a few more breaths, each one feeling like another knife is driving into his shoulder. His ribs took a beating too, but the knife wound is definitely the most painful injury of the night. Maybe the most painful thing he’s ever experienced so far. _

_ He doesn’t have time to peel back the shirt and take a look at the wound, but he knows it’s deep. A knife that had to be three inches got driven in almost to the handle. Mac is keeping pressure on the wound, but it seems like the guy didn’t hit anything immediately vital. There’s no spurting arterial blood, and the former persistent warm flow is tapering off, leaving Mac shivering in the night breeze in his blood-sodden shirt.  _ Could be the shock setting in too. 

_ He can barely make it up the tree back to Bozer’s room at home. Boze is out, thank God, a night shoot for some group film school project.  _ He’d freak out.  _ Mac has come home hurt before, but it’s never, ever been this bad. He thinks he might pass out, that’s got to be the blood loss. _

_ He stumbles into the bathroom and peels his shirt away from his shoulder. The gash is deep, with ragged edges that turn Mac’s stomach just to see them. He already knows it’s bad, much worse than the small scrapes and slices he’s picked up so far.  _ You got too cocky, took on more guys than you should have.  _ He ought to have turned around and gone home when four guards became eight.  _

_ But it doesn’t look quite as deep as he was afraid. In the warm yellow light of the Bozers’ bathroom, what seemed like an impaling stab was actually more angled.  _ No wonder it isn’t too bad, it just slashed into the muscle there.  _ It’s probably only an inch deep at most, but it’s still ragged and raw-looking.   _

_ He grits his teeth, splashing alcohol onto the wound. Immediately, the bleeding starts again, as the liquid washes away some of the clotted blood. It’s a ragged mess, and Mac knows this isn’t going to close on its own, at least not properly. _

_ He wonders briefly about walking into a clinic and trying to explain this in some way that doesn’t implicate him in vigilante justice. Because besides the knife wound, he’s bruised and beaten to hell and he probably smells like a lot of torched cocaine. But he’s too tired and in too much pain to think of a plausible explanation. That’s normally Bozer’s department, and he doesn’t want to tell him about any of this.  _

I’ve heard stories of guys sewing themselves up, mostly older veterans who come into Weathers’s with their war stories. _ They see his Vietnam medals on the wall and him rolling out to greet them in his wheelchair, and suddenly it’s time to break out the old war stories and reminisce about their scars.  _

It’s got to be possible. Right? __

_ A few very sketchy google searches later, he’s sterilizing one of Bozer’s curved upholstery needles (he’ll make sure to clean it well before he puts it back in the costume-sewing kit), some tweezers, nail scissors, a thimble and a pair of small needle-nose pliers in more of the alcohol. He dips some thread in as well, black, so it’s easy to see against the skin. _

_ This isn’t exactly recommended equipment, but he’s going to do what he always does. Improvise. _

_ The first stab of the needle through his skin hurts so much he wants to pull it back out, give up, and go to a hospital, awkward questions be damned. But then he remembers that he has no proof he’s a vigilante, and everything about this situation screams cartel-on-cartel warfare.  _ If they think I’m involved in that… _ He takes a deep breath and keeps forcing the needle through, glancing at his printed pictures of the correct knots as he makes each movement to tie them.  _

_ As the knot pulls tight, the combination of pain and the sickening feeling of something strange in his skin is too much. Mac leans over the sink and throws up.  _ Great. Just what I needed. _ He tries to avoid getting anything gross on his wound, fumbling around on the shelf by the shower for a washcloth and using it to rinse his face. He washes his hands again and finishes pulling the knot snug.  _ And oh God I have to do this at least a dozen more times.

Good thing Deja could sleep through an earthquake and Mama Bozer took a sleeping pill tonight. _ He bites back another scream and pushes the needle through his skin again. _

* * *

 

SOMEWHERE IN KANSAS CITY

THESE TWO ARE NOT HERE FOR THE PIE

Riley glances behind them at the dark street. Maybe it’s just her imagination, but she can hear shouts and the sceech of tires on pavement. “Hurry up, Mac,” she hisses. 

“Does it look like I'm taking my time?” Mac snaps back. 

“Well, I'm just saying, for an ex-vigilante, your burglary skills suck.”

“Normally I just broke windows, I was usually gonna set the place on fire anyway!” He says, but she can hear the mild joke in his voice. “Maybe if you step out of my light.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry.”

“Ah, thank you.” Mac jiggles his lock pick a little more, and the door opens. “See?” 

“Wonderful.” Riley ducks inside and opens her rig while Mac goes around pulling down the blinds. “Hey, I'm gonna send Matty our coordinates so she can redirect that exfil chopper to us.”

“ETA?” Mac asks. 

Riley sighs, leaning back in the booth she’s taken over. “30 minutes. So I'm also gonna upload that data we just stole to the Phoenix just in case…” 

“We, uh, never set foot on that chopper?” Mac asks.  

“Yeah. Pretty much.” Riley looks over at Mac’s worried face. “Hey. Stop beating yourself up. Whatever happens, it isn’t gonna be your fault.”  _ He likes to blame himself for everything, even acts of God. _ “You couldn’t possibly have known that security guard was going to change up his routine and do his checks half an hour early.” 

“You know, right about now, Jack would be saying the same thing.” Mac slides into the booth across from her. He looks too pale, and Riley wishes he’d had a little more time to recover from the Shanghai op.  _ But he insisted he was field ready and for once medical agreed. _

“That’s because it’s the truth. Trust me. And personally, I'm more interested in finding a way out of this mess, since it won't take the guys we stole this from thirty minutes to catch up to us.”

Mac squints and ducks as bright yellow light shines through the cracks in the blinds. “Way less than thirty minutes.”

“Mac? I hate to sound exactly like our dad, again, but now would be a really great time to do something awesome.”

Mac presses a hand to his forehead. “I..uh...I need you to start complaining.”

“What? 

“Yeah. Or...or tell me a long-winded story that doesn't seem to go anywhere.”

“You want me to pretend to be Jack?” Riley asks.  

“Sadly, it helps me think.”

“Uh, all right.” Riley chuckles, then lowers her voice to imitate Jack’s tone and accent. “Hey, hey, Mac, I love that big brain of yours, I do, but, uh, if you'd have just let me shoot them 17 doofuses outside with the two bullets I had left, we'd be kicking back on the Phoenix jet right now, sipping martinis, instead of instead of sitting here, waiting to get our heads blown off.” Mac doesn’t seem to really be listening to her, he’s looking all around the diner, but she’s pretty sure that’s the point. And then he looks up, and she can tell he’s got an idea. 

Got it.” He pulls out his knife and heads for the old pay phone on the wall. “Riley? I need you to turn on the gas stoves, but don't light the burners.”

“So your brilliant plan is to kill us slowly with gas?” 

Mac is talking a mile a minute, probably trying to keep up with his brain. “Oh, nothing about it's gonna be slow. I didn't say it was brilliant. Turn on those burners, fast. They're gonna be coming in here any second.

Riley cringes at the smell as she switches on one burner after another. “Oh, that's nasty. Ah, gross.” 

She can hear shouting from outside as she finishes switching on the burners. “They're in the diner! Spread out, cover the exits!”

“Mac, I really hope you're almost done,” she hisses.  _ He’d better not tell me to go and stay behind as bait or something.  _ She is not letting Mac get captured on her watch. Her fingers twitch against her sidearm, even though she knows there are far too many men coming for her to do any real good.

“Coming.” he’s still doing something with the phone. 

“Yeah, well, work faster.” The door rattles. Mac turns and runs toward her. 

“Freezer, freezer. Let's go, right now.” He pulls her inside and slams the door. 

“So Jack’s constant inability to shut up actually helps you think?” Riley asks. “I’m gonna admit it right now, I’m kinda jealous.”

“Glad you got that off your chest, because I have  _ no _ idea if this is gonna work,” Mac says. “Any other last confessions you wanna make?”

“No. You?”

“Um, you know that tablet you couldn’t find after our op in Chechnya?”

“You did  _ not. _ ” They have a deal; he can break Jack’s phone but he keeps his hands off Riley’s stuff unless he asks permission first, just in case it’s something mission-critical she’s toting around.

“I told Bozer not to tell you, but I kind of needed…”

There’s a thud and more shouting from outside. “They're in here somewhere. Spread out.”

“Okay, you ready?” Mac asks. 

“Yeah, yeah.” He pulls out his phone, glances at his hand and typing in the numbers scrawled in black ink. Riley can hear chatter outside, it sounds like these guys just found the gas. There’s boots thudding as they start retreating, and Mac raises his phone. A second after he hits the call button, there’s a heavy explosion, and several things clatter off the shelves around them. Riley dodges a number ten can of chocolate pudding with a yelp. 

Mac chuckles, moving his arm from over his head and standing up with entirely too large a grin.  _ He has too much fun setting things on fire, I swear.  _ Riley shakes her head. “All right, we better split before the fire department shows, or we're gonna be answering a lot of questions.”

“Yep.” Mac reaches for the door handle and pulls, but the door doesn’t budge. “Oh, come on.” Mac shoves, but nothing happens. He leans back against the cold metal with a sigh and a shiver. 

“Something must have fallen in front of it,” Riley says. “That’s what happens when you blow a building up, you know. Guess we could have gone with the broken window plan. You did set this place on fire. With us in it.” 

“Not the first time.”  _ And knowing you, it won’t be the last either. _ Riley sighs.  _ How did you even survive as long as you did? _ She can’t believe Mac didn’t get himself killed in his first year as a vigilante. Hell, she can’t see him making it through the first six months. 

Mac shivers, rolling down his sleeves and wrapping his arms around his body. Riley is marginally warmer, with her thin sweater and leather jacket, but her fingers and nose already feel chilled. 

“Um, are we gonna run out of air in here?” Riley asks.  _ Do I want to know if we are? Maybe not. But too late now. _

“Not before exfil shows up.” Mac continues to shiver. “Space is big enough.”

“Are we gonna freeze to death then?”

“Pr-probably not.” Mac blows on his fingers and tucks them under his arms. “Might get f-frostbite though.” 

“That’s a comforting thought.” Riley tucks her own hands under her jacket.

“It could be worse,” Mac says. “I got locked in a specimen freezer at MIT last year after a rainstorm. We could be wet.” 

Riley glances up at the ceiling. The explosion didn’t knock out the electricity, and the cool blue light is still glowing.  _ We could be in the dark, too. _ She can hear a strange rushing sound outside, but she can’t pinpoint the source of it. 

“Jack’s gonna be disappointed he missed getting blown up with you,” she says with a faint chuckle.

“If it’s all the same to you, we probably shouldn’t tell him. He’ll just freak out and never listen to his doctor again.” Jack’s still on medical leave for his leg, and Riley will concede that Mac is probably right. _ If Jack found out we almost died on a mission without him, he’d be pissed. _

There’s a loud thud and a cracking sound, and Riley flinches. Something spatters down onto her head. “Uh, Mac, what is that?”

“Ummm…” There’s a creaking groan, and Mac shoves her to the side, just as the light flickers out and something falls into the room with a pattering sound. “Ugh.”

“Mac?” Riley can’t find him in the dark. She reaches out blindly, and suddenly her hand and are are covered in frigid water. “What happened?!”

Mac shouts to be heard over what Riley now realizes is running water. “This place has an old water-based fire supression system! And I think a pipe just broke and fell on top of this freezer!” She hears a faint splashing of shoes in water, and then Mac is standing beside her, panting and shivering even harder. 

“Mac, you okay?” She asks, reaching out and patting up his wet sleeve until she finds his shoulder. 

“Yeah, I will be. Th-thirty minutes, right?” He asks. 

“More like twenty-five now. And the fire department might get here sooner, but, you know, they’re gonna be a little concerned as to how this all happened.” Riley can feel the water that fell into her hair turning into icicles, and her wet hand is almost completely numb. She was lucky her jacket stopped most of the shower, there are a few wet patches on her jeans but she’s definitely not as bad as Mac. 

“As long as they get us outta here, I’ll answer questions all night,” Mac says. Riley shakes her head and huddles a little closer to him.

“Now what were you saying about it could be…”

“No, no, no, don’t say that!” Mac cuts her off with a shaky chuckle. “You’ll just jinx us again.” Riley shakes her head.  _ Yeah, we really shouldn’t tell Jack about this one.  _

* * *

WEATHERS’S BODY SHOP

NOVEMBER 2010

_ Mac winces as the tire he’s lifting strains his injured shoulder. He probably shouldn’t have come in today, he didn’t sleep well and he still feels tired and honestly all around not great. But he can’t afford to miss work for three days straight with no good reason.  _ I don’t want anyone to start asking a lot of questions. 

_ He sets the tire down next to the old Dodge they’re rebuilding the front end on and rubs his aching shoulder. That was the wrong move, the action sends a bolt of pain down his arm and a fresh wave of warmth soaking into his bandages. He risks a glance down, if blood or whatever yellow stuff that’s been oozing out of the gash since this morning soaks through his coveralls, he’s going to have some explaining to do.  _

_ “Hey, man, what’s wrong with your shoulder?” Jody asks, coming up beside him. _

_ “Nothing. Just strained it.” Mac figures that’s a reasonable explanation, guys in here are always messing up joints lifting or dragging stuff around.  _

_ “You weren’t gonna tell nobody?” _

_ “I can still use it.” Mac rotates his arm experimentally, another massive mistake. The pain is excruciating, and he bites back the scream but he knows it’s showing on his face. _

_ “Man, that is  _ not _ okay. Come on. Let’s go to the back and ice it.” Jody puts his hands firmly on Mac’s shoulders. “Kid, you’re not doing any good on the floor if you can’t move your arm. And trust me, you ain’t gonna be twenty forever, and if you don’t take car o’ yourself, you’re gonna be needin’ major surgery when you’re my age.” Mac forces a tiny smile, Jody Russell is only thirty-seven.  _

_ Jody sits Mac down at the break table and opens the freezer, pulling out a bag of ice the guys use for their beers in a cooler on Friday nights. He shoves some in a sandwich bag and wraps it in a paper towel. “Alright, kid, let’s see the damage.”  _

_ Mac flinches.  _ He wants to see it? _ He shrugs. “I’ll just shove the ice on it and we’re probably good.” _

_ “Nah, man, don’t give me that. You coulda strained or even partly dislocated something, and I can’t see from here. Come on, Mac. I know you’re not that shy.” Mac nods, he’s had to wash up in the back a few times after getting sprayed with fluids from the cars that really shouldn’t be left on his skin.  _

_ Sooner or later he’s going to have to do that again, and they’re going to see the scars. Mac sighs, and unbuttons the collar of his coveralls, pushing them down to his waist and cringing as he pulls the t-shirt under them over his head. _

_ “Good Lord, Mac!” Jody gasps, dropping the ice and rushing over. “What is all this?” He starts pulling back the bandages Mac’s wound on top of the gash, and turns away, covering his nose for a second. Mac does the same.  _ That’s horrible.  _ It wasn’t that bad this morning.  _

_ “What have you done to yourself?” Jody asks. “Did that happen out there?” _

_ “N-no,” Mac whispers. “It wasn’t at work.” _

_ “Well, however it happened, that’s infected, and I’m no doctor but that doesn’t look good. You need to take the rest of the day and go straight to the closest hospital and get that taken care of.”  _

_ Mac shakes his head. “No hospital. I can’t. I can’t.”  _

_ “You in some kinda trouble, kid?” _

_ “Sort of.” Mac can’t explain this. “It’s not bad. I just...if anyone finds out I’m going to be in a lot of trouble.” He doesn’t know what they do to vigilantes.  _ It can’t be as bad as what they do to real criminals, right? __

_ “Mac…” _

_ “Please. It’s not…” He was going to say ‘not illegal’ but that’s actually not true.  “You have to trust me. I’m not hurting anyone. I’m trying to help.”  _

_ Jody’s eyes soften. “I don’t think you could hurt a fly, Mac. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re not gonna get any better without some real medical attention.” He scribbles something on the notepad beside the phone and pushes it into Mac’s hand. “There’s a guy back in the place I grew up. Came back from overseas and opened a clinic. He’s a good guy, and he treats a lotta kids who are trapped in the gangs.” _

_ “I’m not…” _

_ “Whatever it is. He doesn’t ask questions and he doesn’t turn them in, if he thinks that’ll only make their lives worse. Go see if he can help you.” Jody says. “And for the love of God don’t wait until your shift is over. Sign out sick and  _ go. _ ”  _

_ Mac does. Weathers doesn’t argue, it must be very clear how bad Mac is feeling, and when he sees his face in the reflection from a chrome bumper on the way out, he winces. Dark circles are the only color in his face.  _

_ He’s not sure he trusts himself to drive all the way to the part of town where the clinic is, so he drives home instead and calls a cab. He has the driver drop him off over a block away from the clinic, just so no one gets suspicious. _

_ When he opens the door, a bell tinkles and a young woman in scrubs gets up from behind a desk. “May I help you?” Her soft accent is clearly some variety of Hispanic, and her nametag half-hidden under a dark ponytail over her shoulder says ‘Kamila’.  _

_ “Um...someone told me maybe Dr. Rivera could help me?” Mac says, and then the room kind of looks like it might be spinning. The next thing he knows, Kamila is guiding him to one of the hard blue plastic chairs with a grip that’s much stronger than he was expecting.  _

_ “Wait right here. I’ll go get Carlos.”  _

_ Mac leans back in the chair. It’s warm in here, and he’s tired. It’s really warm. He’s sweating, and that stings when it runs down into the gash. He’s sitting right by a window, and the sun is beating on him. Maybe he should get up and move. He stands up, and then everything is swaying again. He falls back into the chair with a wince.  _

_ “ _ Dios mio.  _ Kami, you didn’t tell me it was this bad.” The new voice is soft and reassuring. Mac blinks drowsily, there are two people in scrubs now, and the man in kneeling in front of him. “Come on, let’s get you into an exam room.” He slides an arm under Mac’s and helps him to his feet, leading him across the waiting room and down a hall.  _

_ Mac sits down hard on a paper-covered exam table and for the second time that day starts taking off his shirt. He didn’t put the t-shirt on under his coverall again, it would have hurt too much. He pushes the oil-stained green cloth down to his waist and pulls away the bandages, it’s a lot easier this time since he wasn’t really bothering to try and make the bulge of them hard to see. _

_ The doctor’s brown eyes are warm with concern. “What happened here?” _

_ Mac knows he shouldn’t tell anyone the truth. It’s safer that way. For him and for this Good Samaritan doctor. “Got into a place I shouldn’t have been, ended up in the middle of a gang fight or something.”  _

_ “You need to stay away from the gangs and cartels.” Rivera’s face is pained in a different way than Mac knows his own is, as he gently probes and examines the wound. “This doesn’t look like an accident to me. Whatever you’re mixed up in, kid, please trust me and get out of it.” He rests a hand on Mac’s good shoulder. “I can help you if you need a job, or something. But please, don’t think that’s your only choice.” _

_ Mac wants to cry. This guy is trying to do the same thing he is, protect the innocent people around him from the horrors the gangs and cartels inflict on the city.  _ I want to tell him. I want him to know I’m not a lost, lonely kid looking for acceptance, for something to fill the time. I want him to know I’m trying to stop this too. _ But it looks like Carlos Rivera is making himself a target already, and Mac can’t add to that.  _

_ “It’s not like that. But...what I’m doing...it  _ is _ the only way.” _

* * *

PUERTO RICO

PRESENT DAY

Jack chuckles softly, setting down the hammer he was using and looking over his handiwork. “You know, Mac, when you invited me on an island vacation, I pictured pristine beaches, you know? Maybe some tropical drinks with them little umbrellas in them?”

Mac chuckles softly. “I know. And, look, I really do appreciate you using your last injury leave week to help with Carlos’s house. I really owe you all a big thanks.”

“Man, I would build ten houses for the guy who kept your skinny ass alive when you were runnin’ around bein’ the Lone Ranger.” Jack chuckles. 

“Happy to help, Mac,” Riley says. “And Jack, as I recall, you’re the one who called those little fruity umbrella drinks ‘for the wimpy lips who can’t handle a good shot ‘o Texas whiskey'.”

“Well, Puerto Rico needed us way more than we needed the R&R.” Bozer says. 

“Even  _ after _ the diner incident,” Riley chuckles. Mac cringes, and despite the heat of the tropical sun, he shivers.  _ That was one of the longest half hours of my life. _

“What, you two survive one near-death experience, and it's the new Cairo or something? Is that it?” Mac knows the man’s a little salty that they’re withholding details from him.  _ Apparently the same thing he and Riley do when it comes to Cairo. _

“Hey, I thought we didn't talk about Cairo?” Bozer says. 

“Exactly. These two are refusin’ to tell me exactly what happened back there in Kansas City, so I know it was something bad.”

“Ah, lighten up, Jack. After all, ‘Everything’s up to date in Kansas City’,” Bozer begins whistling.

“Thank goodness not the phones,” Riley says with a chuckle. 

“And the fire suppression systems,” Mac adds ruefully. 

“Come on, kids. There is a story here, and I need to hear it,” Jack says. “You can’t just say things like that and leave your old man hanging.” 

“You were there with us in spirit, Jack.” Riley says, then turns back to her own work. 

Mac makes an effort to change the subject before Jack worms the information out of them anyway. “Hey, guys, seriously, I really appreciate you all pitching in, 'cause without your help, it would've been a year before Carlos and his family had a roof over their heads, so thank you.”

“Speaking of,” Bozer chuckles, “who's ready to raise the roof?”

Jack laughs. “Come on, now.”

“I knew it was coming,” Riley groans. “I knew it. You’re getting as bad as Jack.” 

“Tell me now, you know you liked it.” 

Mac pulls himself up to where the roof is going to go. After a few climbs up and down for some measurements and things, it doesn’t feel as terrifying as it did.  _ I’m not going to fall. I’m okay. _ “All right, guys, pull at the same time when I say it. We're gonna do it a couple times till we get it all the way up.”

Jack joins him up at the top of the house. “Hey, Mac, I know this might not be the best time for constructive criticism…”

“Not really.” Mac is trying to focus on how not-scared he is. 

“But why are we using these rickety-ass ladders when there's perfectly good telephone poles right there?” 

“Two words: Hurricane Maria. Heavy rain, it loosens topsoil, which means that nothing out here is as sturdy as it looks.”  _ Oh.  _ Mac grins as he realizes Jack’s comments had the usual intention of distracting him from what’s worrying him about a situation and helping him actually think.  _ I missed that a lot. _ Riley’s great, but it’s not the same. 

“All right, on three, pull. One, two, pull!” The truss slowly moves upward. Mac continues telling Riley and Bozer when to pull, and the wooden frame rises until it’s in a position for Mac and Jack to slide it over and secure it.

“Alright, only gotta do this about fifteen more times,” Jack says with a grin. “You ready for that, homie?”

Mac nods.

They’ve just finished the last of the trusses when a rust-colored pickup pulls into the dirt driveway. “Carlos is gonna be stoked,” Bozer says, grinning.  _ He was the first one to volunteer when I asked who wanted to come help with the house.  _ Clearly Bozer hasn’t forgotten that awful Christmas two years ago.  

“My house has walls! And a roof, Mac!” He shouts as he jumps out. 

Mac slides down, grinning. “It's got a frame, we still need plywood, tar paper, shingles…”

“It's way more than I've had in months, okay, so I'm happy.” Carlos claps him on the shoulder. “Oh, I'm sorry I wasn't here to help earlier, but this damn truck died on me twice on my way from the lumber yard. It started making that g-g-glug sound, and I couldn't do anything.”

“ Let's take a look.” Mac pops the hood open, and for a second, he feels like he’s gone back eight years, trading repairs on Carlos’s beat-up vehicles for medical visits.  _ He always told me I didn’t have to, but I felt bad that he was using his time and supplies and I wasn’t doing anything to pay him back.  _ Carlos would never accept money, but he would let Mac tinker around with the string of beaters he was constantly getting.  _ He’d buy them off the side of the road, we’d get them running, and it always seemed like a week later he was giving them away to kids he helped pull out of gangs, who needed to be able to drive to new jobs.  _

“Check this first…” He pulls open the fuse box and sighs. “Yeah. That's what it is. You got some water in your fuse box a while back.”

“Oh, water. I have no idea how that happened,” Carlos says sarcastically. 

“I know, right?” Mac grins. “Good news is, it's an easy fix.” He pulls out a couple framing nails and jams them in the right spots. “Believe it or not, this should hold you, at least until you get the new parts for your truck.”

“Thanks, Mac. Still as handy with a car as ever, I see.” He shakes Mac’s hand, then rolls his arm over, frowning. “And as accident-prone.” Mac sighs. He rolled up his sleeves today, it was hot and he forgot he was trying to hide the marks. “I was really hoping a government job would mean you spent  _ less _ time on a medical table,” Carlos says, shaking his head. “What is this, man? Rope burns? And you are favoring your left side, don’t tell me you’re not.” Mac sighs.  _ Of course he’s going to see every little injury. _ His scrapes and raw skin from shimmying down an elevator shaft are almost totally healed, and the graze on his side probably only needs another week before it’s gone too.

Mac is spared an explanation when a small girl runs up beside the truck. “Papa!” she says excitedly.

“Oh,  _ mija _ ! Come over here, Adriana.” Carlos lifts her up and turns toward the house. “ _ Mira. Mira nuestra nueva casa _ .” 

“ _ Me encanta _ . You hungry, Papa?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

“I brought everyone lunch.” She picks up a cardboard box full of paper bags. 

“Lunch? Wow. Look at that.” Carlos grabs a bag and holds it out to Mac. “Mac.”

“Look at you!” Mac says, grinning, then takes the offered bag. “Ah, yes, thank you.”

“Hey.  _ Gracias, cariño _ .” Jack mangles the accent but Adi still grins at him.  _ She loves when he reads her stories with lots of funny voices.  _ It still sometimes shocks Mac how good Jack is with kids. 

“ _ Gracias, _ ” Riley says when Adi hands her one of the bags. 

“Riley!” It’s clear she’s become popular as well. Mac grins. “I asked my mom to do my hair like yours today.”

“It's so pretty!” Riley says. “Here, let me see. I love it.”

Carlos leans on the truck beside Mac. “You know, Mac? I owe you, I I owe you big-time, man.”

“You don't owe me.  _ I _ owe  _ you _ .” Mac says. “I would have died twenty times over if it weren’t for you.”

“Try thirty-eight,” Carlos says. “I kept every visit you made in a file.”

“Some of those were not life-threatening!” Mac insists. “And this is the least I could do for you. You’re the real hero, I’m just here for a few days giving you a hand. You’ve been down here for months helping these people, sticking around for them.” 

“That’s what I’m good at, Mac, you know that.” Carlos smiles. “After the hurricane, I came down with a team of Red Cross medics, all of us were ex-military. Kamila and Adi came down a few days later.” He rests his hand on Adriana’s shoulder. “We’re going to stay permanently now. I’ve left the LA clinic in good hands. One of the first kids I helped out of the Meridas went off and got himself a medical degree, and came back to pay it forward.” He smiles. “He’ll keep fighting the good fight for me.”

“That’s good to hear. But man, I’m gonna miss having you around.”

“Yeah, and I’m gonna worry about you, you know it. But it looks like you got good people looking after you now,” Carlos says, glancing toward Riley, Jack, and Bozer. “I can’t thank them enough for doing this. It was such a shock when...when there was nothing left of my mother’s house when I drove to the neighborhood.” He swallows hard.

“Did she…” Mac asks, almost afraid to hear.

“She survived the storm. But the stress was too much for her heart.” Carlos sighs. “She was helping others right up until the day she collapsed. Cooking for half the camp she was staying in.” He smiles sadly. “She was a good woman.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Carlos puts a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you. We managed to track down Kamila’s mother-in-law, she’s staying with us now.” 

“How’s the clinic?”

“I’ve been doing what I can with limited supplies. As usual.” Carlos smiles. “It’s not as bad as it was, but many people are sick and injuries happen when they’re trying to clean up after the storm.” Mac nods. 

“What do you say we get this lumber unloaded, see what else we can get done before the sun goes down, yeah?” Jack says, walking around to the back of the truck.

“Yeah, let's do it.” Riley grabs one end of a sheet of plywood and starts hauling it out. 

“Oh, and you guys, work up those appetites, 'cause tonight, you're all gonna go back to my place and have a big thank-you dinner,” Carlos says. “My mother-in-law makes the best pasteles you're ever gonna taste.”

“Ooh, you had me at "dinner," man,” Jack says. “Come on, guys, you heard him, let’s get this done!” 

* * *

LOS ANGELES

NOVEMBER 2010

_ “You’re home early,” Bozer says, looking up when Mac comes through the front door. _ I’m not surprised. _ His best friend has looked terrible for days, insisting he’s come down with whatever’s going around.  _ Of course you did, you barely sleep anymore. __

_ “You’re home.” Mac looks a bit startled to see him. _

_ “Had a grease fire at Tony’s. Now there’s fire suppression foam everywhere and that’s all gotta be cleaned up before we can open the grill again. Tony sent half my shift home. I offered to stay but he said I should go work on my video homework. That’s what I get for complaining about the editing deadlines.” He sighs, staring down at the screen in front of him. “I’ve been sitting here for two hours with absolutely no creative energy.” _

_ “Do you want any help?” _

_ “No. You need to go to bed. You look like death warmed over.” Mac does. He’s pale and wobbling on his feet. And there’s something sticking out of his coveralls pocket. When he leans against the doorframe, it falls out and to the floor.  _

_ Mac bends over, starting to pick the small orange bottle up with a groan. Bozer beats him to it. “Mac? What are these?” _

_ “Antibiotics. Went to see a doctor, that cold’s some kinda infection now.” Mac takes the bottle back and stuffs it into his pocket. “But these oughta clear it up.” _

_ “That’s what you get for ignoring that you don’t feel good. Mac, I hope you learned your lesson.”  _

_ “Oh, I did.” Mac turns toward the stairs. “Trust me, I’m not gonna make the same mistake again.”  _

* * *

Mac has seen the tent city every day this week, and it never gets any easier to watch. Children are running and playing, and people are cooking, washing clothes, and going about their daily routines. But there’s a sense of fear and impermanence. 

He knows a little of what it’s like to wonder what new disaster each day will bring. He spent two years living without thinking further ahead than the next few hours. Because he knew more than that would make him lose what little courage he had left.  _ You can’t let yourself worry too much, or it paralyzes you. _

He’s glad when they stop at Carlos’s tent and climb out of his pickup. Kamila and her mother are there, and Mac forces himself to stop thinking about the past and give them both a smile. 

Adi runs up to her mother. “Riley said she likes my hair.”

“I told you it looked beautiful,” Kamila says, then smiles at the newcomers. Mac remembers when she was a nurse and receptionist in the clinic in L.A., with that smile for everyone who walked through the door. Plenty of times, Mac was the reason it turned into a frown.  _ She fretted about me as much as Carlos did. _

“I hear you got the roof on today,” She says.

“We did, yeah.”

“Carlos always said, ‘MacGyver can fix anything’.”  

“Well, now, he did have a little bit of help,” Jack says, chuckling. “But I was promised some pasteles? Is that right?”

Valeria, Kamila’s mother, laughs and says something in rapid Spanish. Mac doesn’t catch all of it, but he can hear a few words he knows a little too well. He’s glad they’re directed at Jack and not at him. 

“Uh-oh,” Jack says, but he’s grinning. 

“What'd she say?” Bozer asks, clearly curious, since both Riley and Mac are turning away and beginning to blush. 

“Um, she said, “Dinner is served’,” Carlos says quickly, trying to salvage the situation. 

“No, she didn't, Carlos,” Jack says knowingly. “You're a terrible liar, but I'll let it slide. You know why, Mom?  'Cause you're a cutie pie.” Valeria giggles like a teenage girl, and Mac begins to chuckle.  _ Jack, always the charmer. _ “Come on, get over here, I'll escort you to dinner.” He wraps his arm through hers and leads her into the tent.

There’s plenty of cheerful chatter around the table as Valeria insists on serving everyone. She sits down on one side of Jack, who’s next to Carlos at the head of the table. Mac, Riley, and Bozer are clustered around the other end, with Kamila sitting beside Adi. Bozer’s telling Adi a story, something about magic and fairies and unexpected friendships. Mac hasn’t heard this one before, either Boze is making it up on the spot or he’s had yet another idea for a blockbuster movie. 

Mac’s actually pretty interested in the story when he hears Jack practically shout from the other end of the table, “He did  _ what?” _

Mac looks up, startled. Jack is glaring down the length of the table at him. “Kid, if you _ever_ _ignore a broken bone in your leg for seventy-two hours_ on my watch…”

_ Oh no. _ Mac sighs and looks down at the tablecloth, wishing it would drag him through a portal into Bozer’s fairy world.  _ I was really hoping he wasn’t going to tell Jack about those things.  _

“I think Jack and Carlos are bonding over shared distress about your injury-prone tendencies,” Riley says, grinning. 

“I knew letting them meet was a bad idea. Both of them are going to be more worried about me than ever.” Mac told the team  _ some _ of his stories about the vigilante days, and they’ve seen the scars. But still, he tried to make things sound like no big deal. Carlos won’t sugar-coat any of it.  _ And when he hears about some of the things I’ve done since I joined Phoenix, there is gonna be hell to pay. _

Jack can’t tell him everything, but they did sort of accidentally let him know the truth that Christmas when Bozer got kidnapped and Mac took him to the clinic. And knowing Jack, he’ll exploit every loophole he can to have someone to commiserate with about Mac’s lack of self-preservation skills. 

Kamila has obviously noticed the same thing, and she quickly changes the subject. “So, Jack, what do you think of my mama's pasteles?” 

“Oh, Valeria, these are the best things I've ever put in my mouth.”

Valeria giggles and says something that Mac wishes he hadn’t heard. 

“What? What'd she say?” Bozer asks. 

“She says ‘thank you’.” Jack says quickly. 

Clearly Kamila’s attempt to ease the awkward turn of the conversation only made things worse. Riley glances at Mac and then at the middle of the table, where two silver candlesticks are set, the candles in them flickering cheerfully. “Those are beautiful,” Riley says, running her fingers over the gleaming silver. 

“Those belonged to my abuela,” Carlos says. “After the storm, I went back to what was left of my mother’s house, and, you know, tried to salvage anything I could.” He turns away for a moment, and Mac sees a glance between him and Kamila, before both of them turn and look at Adriana, who is happily munching away at her own pastele.  _ Something’s wrong, something they would rather not say in front of her. _

Carlos stands up, grabbing a bottle of wine and filling the plastic cups at everyone’s place. He lifts his and looks at everyone around the table. “I want to thank my old friend MacGyver, and my new friends: Jack, Bozer and Riley, for taking a break from their lives and coming out here, help us rebuild ours. You know, all the way out here, on this small island in the middle of the ocean, it's easy to feel like the rest of the nation has forgotten what happened to us. So it means the world, to me and my family, that you did not. That you came out here to help us. A toast.

Here's to friends, old and new, this thank-you, it's not just from me and my family, but all Puerto Rico.”

“To a brighter tomorrow,” Mac says, raising his own cup. “ _ Salud _ .”

After the dishes are cleared away and cleaned, Mac joins Carlos outside the tent, looking up at the stars. 

“They’re brighter here,” Carlos says, and Mac nods. The L.A. lights washed out the faint flickers even on the darkest nights. Mac knows, he spent many of those nights on the streets as the Phoenix. 

“I’m glad you found your place here.” Carlos talked about moving back, ever since Adi was born. He didn’t want her to grow up surrounded by the gangs and cartels, not when he was being harrassed and threatened by them.  _ He knew what he did would put her at risk. _ It’s not that this place doesn’t have its own dangers, but there are fewer organized crime rings like L.A. And more people who will step up and look after the family if Carlos gets in over his head.  _ There’s a bond between the people here. _

He looks inside, where Riley and Bozer are acting out a story for Adi. “What did you not want to say about the candlesticks in front of her?” Mac asks quietly. 

“The truth is, if we don’t get the relief money that we were promised soon, I’m going to have to sell a lot of things, including them. The people need medicine more than we need some old candlesticks.” Carlos says. “Our clinic is operating on almost nothing. We need more supplies.”

“Is there anything…”

“You’ve done more than enough, Mac. At this point, all we can do is pray. That the money comes when it’s expected and that there are no problems getting it to those who need it.” Carlos looks up at the stars, then turns back to Mac. “I will do whatever I have to do to help these people.” 

Mac nods. He, of all people, understands that.

* * *

CARLOS’S NEW HOUSE

JACK PREFERS THIS TO GETTING SHOT AT. 

“Hey, guys, only four more hours till Matty wants us back on that plane to L.A.” Mac hops down from where he’s securing plywood sheeting and walks over to Jack’s saw station. 

“Man, my lower back's gonna hate me for saying this, but I wish we could stay and keep working.” Jack grins at him. “We make a pretty good building team. What do you say we quit the spy biz and go into construction?” 

He’s only half-kidding. Mac is still favoring his left side, and Jack can’t stop thinking about all the other injuries the kid’s acquired over the years, ever since his conversation with Carlos last night.  _ Not that things can’t go wrong, really wrong, on a construction site, but at least normally people aren’t shooting at you. _ He’d just make sure to keep Mac away from the saws. 

“Yeah, you know, it would've been nice to see this place finished before we left, Mac,” Bozer says. 

“But, there’s only so much four of us can do in four hours. So let’s stop talking and get busy working,” Riley says with a chuckle.  _ Okay, she can fight Matty for the position of site foreman.  _

Jack swings around with a cut sheet of plywood and pulls back when he almost collides with a small figure. “Hey, Adriana, is it lunch already?” But he stops joking when he sees her face. 

“Where's my dad?”

“He's not at your place? We kind of figured after last night's party, he just let himself sleep in,” Jack says.

“No. My dad went to the clinic this morning at sunrise. He said it was important.” 

Mac leans down and rests a hand on Adi’s shoulder. “Yeah, I bet my build on his truck probably didn't hold up, so he's stuck on the side of the road. We're gonna go find him now, aren't we?” he asks, looking at the others.  _ It doesn’t take four people to fix a truck. But if Carlos was transporting medical supplies, there’s a good chance he got robbed for them. _ People know now that he’s a doctor, and they probably know the route he takes.  _ And medical supplies in a disaster torn country are worth more than gold.  _

“Yeah. Yeah, we'll find him, sweetie. Don't worry.” Jack says. 

Their own ride to and from the volunteer housing site is an old Jeep Mac found abandoned on the side of the road and coaxed into running. He’s going to turn it over to the people coordinating relief efforts as soon as they leave. Jack climbs in the front with him, and Riley and Bozer sit in the back.

It’s a decent way to town, and a bumpy ride. Jack’s sore muscles are complaining. A lot. Every time a pothole jerks the steering wheel out of his hands, his bad shoulder aches. 

“Adi said he went to the clinic, right?” Bozer says. “Where is that?”

“According to my maps, about two miles ahead of us. Jack, I’ll tell you where to turn,” Riley says. She doesn’t have her full rig, just a tablet, but it amazes Jack what she can do with just that. 

Following Riley’s directions, they pull up outside a small, water-stained white building with a large red cross painted on the front wall. Carlos’s rust-tone pickup is parked in the alley beside it. But when Jack tries the front door, it’s locked. He peers in through one slightly dusty window. It’s dark inside, and there’s no sign of movement.

“Hey Carlos, man, where are you?” Jack asks. There’s no answer. “Come on, let’s go around back.”

Jack glances into the truck as they pass. The doors are locked, but the white and red box that Carlos transports the more controlled medical supplies in isn’t in the passenger seat where Jack’s seen it a few times this week.  _ So he made it all the way here unharmed, but did someone confront him here? _

The back door is also locked. Mac picks it with a couple paperclips and lets them in. The cramped back room that doubles as a nurses’ station, filing office, and supply room is messy, but Jack can clearly see the box, still locked, on one of the desks. Mac notices it too. 

“The medications are right here. No one stole them.” Mac sighs. “Where would he have gone?”

“Maybe he got called for an emergency?” Riley says. “What if someone got hurt in the street?”

Jack nods. “Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Mac and I’ll look for him. You and Bozer head down to the police station and see if anyone’s heard anything about him.” 

Riley and Bozer hurry off, and Mac joins Jack walking down toward an as-yet uncleared part of town. “Mac, I don’t like this,” Jack says. “Something’s wrong.”

“I know.” Mac’s voice is tight and fearful. “Carlos saved me more times than I care to admit. I’d kind of like to return the favor.” 

* * *

SAN JUAN POLICE STATION

RILEY KNOWS WHY NO ONE SENT MAC IN HERE

Riley hates waiting. Especially in places like this.  _ I’ve waited around them to get bail posted a few too many times.  _ She steps outside to call Matty, letting Bozer hold her place in line. 

Predictably, Matty is not happy. “Riley, only Mac can go to Puerto Rico to build a house and wind up working a missing persons case. Sounds like he needs a vacation from your vacation.”

“Yeah, about that, Matty. I know we're supposed to be on a plane in a few hours, but Mac is really worried about Carlos and we’d like to give him a little more time to figure this out.”

“Look, I get it, and I'm sorry, but we have a national security crisis brewing here. I need you guys on a plane to Pakistan. If this doesn’t turn out to be the innocent misunderstanding I hope it is, you're gonna have to let the local authorities look for Carlos.”

“No, no.” Riley looks back over her shoulder at the crowded, noisy police station. “The local authorities are working overtime trying to maintain order and find people who went missing in the storm. If we leave now, Carlos is gonna be just another name on a very long list. I hate to say it, but if we don't find him, no one's going to.”

Matty sighs. “Okay, if I reroute your infil flight to leave directly from Puerto Rico, and I brief you on the plane, I could buy you another eight hours. That's the best I can do. If you guys can't find Carlos by tonight, Mac’s gonna have to leave it to the local authorities.”

“Sounds good.” Riley texts Jack what Matty told her, and then heads back inside. 

Bozer looks pretty overwhelmed by the chaos. “Can you believe this? It's been seven months since Maria hit and the whole island's still struggling.”

“Yeah.” Riley looks around. A woman is trying to stop a small child from crying, an irate man is shouting about stolen tools, and there’s nothing but chaos. 

“Some of my family went through the same thing after Katrina,” Bozer says. “Crazy how a bunch of wind and water can bring down everything we rely on.” Riley just nods. 

She catches the arm of the next officer who walks past. “Excuse me. Look, I know you're really busy. We just wanted to file a missing persons report.” She hopes that will get them more attention than just asking if anyone’s heard anything about a doctor being needed. All that’s gotten her is, ‘everyone around here needs one’. 

“We can take your statement, but you're gonna have to wait like everyone else. We're stretched even thinner than usual today.”

“Why? What's going on?” Riley asks.

“Half the force is out on a special protection detail.”

“Protecting what?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss that with civilians,” the officer says rather pompously, clearly proud he’s in on a secret operation.

“My name is Riley Davis, I’m an operative with the U.S. government, and I can call my boss in L.A. and confirm it.” She says sharply. She’s not in the mood to get the bureaucratic runaround. “What are they guarding?”

The minute he tells her, she steps outside and calls Mac and Jack. 

“You know that relief money you said Carlos was going to need for the clinic?” Riley says. “A shipment came in today at ten a.m. Two million dollars was sent to the bank here in San Juan. Half the police force was retasked to guard it.”

Mac sighs. “Carlos probably went to the bank to sign for his clinic’s portion right away. He said they needed it fast.” 

“So he’s just at the bank. Okay, cool,” Jack says. “We’ll go tell him his daughter’s worried, and…”

“She said he went in at sunrise. And his truck was completely cool,” Mac cuts Jack off. “He’s been in there a really long time.”

“Come on, Mac, stop seein’ crazy stuff where there isn’t any. Riley said the money didn’t get here till ten, it’s barely been half an hour, and when is the government ever on time? He might still be waiting. And even if it’s here there’s probably a lotta red tape and forms. It’s government money, you know how that goes,” Jack sighs. “Like trying to get Pops’s veteran’s pension. But, you know, just to be on the safe side, Riley, can you…” 

“Get bank security cameras?” Riley asks. “Already done.” She pulls them up, then almost drops the phone with a gasp. 

It’s a robbery. There are five men inside with guns, and all the customers are huddled on the floor, along with several of the police officers, whose guns are being taken by the armed men. The man who seems to be in charge has a gun to the back of a woman Riley guesses must be the manager. She doesn’t have audio, but she’s sure he’s telling everyone not to do anything or the woman dies. 

One of the police officers, probably the leader of the group, is slowly pulling a second gun from his belt. Riley cringes.  _ No, don’t.  _ She’s seen these kind of situations, and this is going to make it all worse. 

The man’s movements catch the attention of one of the gunmen. He turns and shoots the officer in the arm, just enough to wing him and make him drop the gun. The leader turns, taking his eyes off the manager for a second, and she reaches over a desk and pushes the silent alarm.

And then another of the robbers holds up a small radio.  _ They have a police scanner. _ This is going from bad to worse, very fast. 

“What’s going on?” Jack asks, running up with Mac. Riley hands over her tablet wordlessly. Carlos is kneeling beside the wounded man, wrapping his arm with a shirtsleeve, but when the lead gunman grabs the manager and shoves his gun to her temple, he jumps up, grabs the man’s gun arm, and pushes the woman away from him. Riley gasps. 

_ Why is everyone who spends time around Mac some kind of self-sacrificing hero? _ And then there’s the kind of motion Riley recognizes as a gun going off, and Carlos crumples to the ground.

“Is he…” Bozer asks weakly.

“No, that was his leg,” Mac says. “But if someone doesn’t de-escalate that situation, a lot more people than him are gonna get hurt.” He takes off running toward the back of the bank. “Coordinate with the cops when they get here!” 

“Where the hell are you going?” Jack yells.

“To become a hostage.”

_ Oh, not you too. _

* * *

LOS ANGELES

MARCH 2011

_ Mac glances ruefully at the paper laying on the waiting room table when he walks in. The headline article is about the Phoenix saving two patrol cops from a cartel hit. They don’t say anything about the cartel hit men coming after him and getting in a lucky shot. _

_ It’s not that Mac hasn’t been shot before. But the first two were just grazes, easy to take care of with the leftover supplies he has from other visits to Carlos. He knows he shouldn’t, but he never uses as much of the cleaners, ointment, and bandages as he should, he just stockpiles them in a box under his bed until he gets another minor injury. But this one is anything but minor. His leg feels like it’s on fire.  _ At least I didn’t wait three days before coming this time.

_ “Mac?” Kamila asks, then looks down at his leg. “Just go back, he’s not with a patient.” Mac sighs. He must be bleeding through his jeans. And Kami is all too familiar with him by now. _

_ He finds his way to an empty exam room, and Carlos rushes in what feels like seconds later. “Mac, what have you done now?” _

_ “It’s nothing. It’s just...kind of not stopping bleeding,” Mac mumbles.  _

_ “You can’t keep coming in here beaten to hell and back and tell me it’s nothing.” Carlos says. He leans down and looks at the wound, then straightens up, eyes horrified. “Mac, that’s a  _ bullet wound _. You don’t get that by accident.”  _

_ “I know, but I swear, I’m not mixed up in something bad.” _

_ “You keep saying that. Mac, this is bad if it’s still bleeding. And your heart rate is through the roof, that’s not helping, you’re just losing more blood. I’m gonna give you something for the pain, as long as you aren’t on anything else. Mac?” _

_ “No, no drugs. I swear.”  _

_ Carlos nods, then leaves for a few minutes. When he comes back he’s holding a needle, and he presses it into Mac’s arm. “This didn’t just happen.”  _

_Mac swallows, against the pain and tears simultaneously._ I know. And I can’t go to a hospital with it, so if he wants to turn me in like those doctors are supposed to do I have nowhere else to go. _And maybe Carlos would think that’s the only way to help him._ _He sees someone who’s part of a gang, who won’t leave that life. He might think sending them to prison is better than leaving them on the streets to be killed._

_ “I can’t in good conscience treat this here.” Carlos shakes his head, he’s getting blurry so Mac knows the painkillers are kicking in, they always make him drowsy. “Mac, I’m going to call some people who can help you. I know that’s not what you want, but I think it’s the only way to keep this from happening again.” Mac can see the deep pain in the doctor’s eyes. He’s seen Mac on his table far too often since last winter.  _ I wonder if knowing I had someone to help me made me take more risks. 

_ Mac wants to cry. Carlos just wants to help him, wants to help someone he sees and thinks is trapped in the vicious cycle of gang life.  _ If I tell him the truth, I put him in danger.  _ But something tells him the doctor won’t care.  _

_ Mac grabs Carlos’s wrist with whatever weak grip he has left, hoping he can fight back the drowsiness long enough to tell the man the truth. “I-I’m not p-part of a gang. I’m the-the Phoenix.” The stories are all over the papers, Carlos with his interest in gang and cartel matters must know about the vigilante.  _

_ “ _ Dios mio.”  _ Carlos gasps out.  _

_ “I’m sorry I d-didn’t tell you before, but I didn’t want t-to put you in more danger.” _

_ “I should have known,” Carlos says quietly. “I see the paper come to the door every morning, and when there’s an article about the Phoenix, you usually follow it in.” He shakes his head. “Don’t worry about me. And don’t worry about your secret. I won’t tell anyone.” _

_ Mac leans back against the table, finally allowing the exhaustion to pull him under.  _

* * *

Mac finds his way into the building through a rear window, opening the lock with his knife since the alarm has already been triggered, and sneaking into a bathroom. He’s not a minute too soon, because no sooner has he stepped back toward the row of stalls than a man with glasses and longish greasy hair comes in with a gun. 

“Hey! Hands! Let me see 'em!” he shouts, and Mac raises his hands. The man grabs him by the shoulder and throws him against the wall. It doesn’t really hurt, but Mac gasps and yelps anyway.  _ Maybe I’m overdoing it? Bozer would tell me. _

“You got anything on you, huh? You got any weapons on you?” Mac shudders, the man’s hands checking his pockets and legs are rough and a little too invasive for his comfort. He doesn’t have to fake the flinching now. “What's this?” The man pulls Mac’s knife out of his pocket and shoves it in his own. “I always wanted one of these.” It hurts more than Mac wants to admit to see the knife Jack gave him in someone else’s hands, and suddenly he desperately wants Jack here.  _ Why did I tell him to stay outside?  _

Getting lost in his head doesn’t help his current situation, it only pisses off the guy with the gun. He grabs Mac’s shoulder. “Get up! Get up!”

“Okay.” Mac stumbles to his feet, leaning on the wall a little. 

“Move! Open the door. Open it.” Mac does, but not fast enough for this man, because he earns himself another shove that sends him colliding painfully with the doorframe. 

Mac knew plenty of guys like this man in prison. People who liked being in charge, liked being powerful, because they liked hurting everyone else. Whether their power came from a cartel backing them or a shiv in their hands, they acted just like this man with a gun trained on him. Brutal because they could be.

“Let's go.” The gunman shoves him out into the lobby, and Mac watches Carlos’s eyes widen as he’s pushed inside.  _ He had no idea we were coming.  _ And there’s a lot of blood on the floor around his leg. Carlos has his belt off and wrapped around his thigh, but it’s not enough. 

“Is that all?” A tallish man with sandy hair and beard asks. He’s the one who was holding the gun on the manager. She’s shaking, huddled with the rest of the hostages, and there’s blood on her skirt, probably because she was so close to Carlos when he was shot. 

“Yeah. This one was hiding in the bathrooms, but he’s the only other one in here.” The man who found Mac pushes him toward the others, so roughly that Mac stumbles. 

“Alright. You two take the manager to the vault and get our money,” the leader says, pointing to two of the robbers. He glares at the manager herself. “Hands on your head.” The woman does so, standing up slowly.

Mac looks from the man who must be the leader to Carlos. The officer who was winged is sitting in a corner; his arm looks like it’s stopped bleeding, but Carlos’s leg clearly hasn’t. “I can…”

“Hey! Did anyone say you could talk?” Now the leader has the gun turned on Mac. “Shut it, pretty boy, or you’re gonna be the next one with a bullet in them. Got it?”

“Listen, you gotta do something. A dead hostage looks really bad, you know.”  _ Carlos probably won’t actually going to bleed out, not with what he’s already done, but I need an excuse to look around in here.  _ “If everyone in here stays alive, the cops will go easier on you.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Listen. Armed robbery, that’ll get you a decent prison stint, sure. But murder? They’ll send you away forever, and it won’t be pretty.” Mac shrugs, trying not to let them see that just saying it leaves a flutter of fear in his stomach. 

“Fine. You got five minutes.” 

Mac kneels beside Carlos, glancing over his work. “Hey, now, you’re stealing my job,” he says with a small smile. “I’m supposed to be the one who needs the patch job.”

Carlos chuckles, but the sound tapers into a groan. “Can’t let you have all the fun, Mac.” There’s sweat on his forehead and his hands are clenched around something hanging at his neck.  _ His dog tags. _ Mac wonders if the wound is giving the man flashbacks to his time overseas.  _ He was a medic, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t right there on the front lines too. _

Mac turns to the teller crouched closest to them. “Hi...Lucy? Is there a break room here?”

“Why?”

“I need black pepper.” 

“Pepper?” the woman asks. 

“It’ll make sense in a minute.”

“Uh, Rajelio, he eats lunch at his desk every day. He might have some.” Lucy points to a desk near the corner of the room. 

Carlos gives Mac a lopsided grin. “I taught you this one. Natural coagulant.” 

Mac nods. “I’ve used that trick...uh, more times than you probably wanna know. And you know it’s gonna hurt.” 

Carlos nods.  “Just do it, Mac.” 

Mac nods, then stands up, walking over to the desk. He pulls open a drawer, and almost immediately finds a handful of the joined salt and pepper packets. He grabs them, but continues searching, palming a pair of earbuds and a car key fob as well, and a bottle of hand sanitizer that happens to be inside. He also grabs a couple pencils from a jar, shaking out the rest and grabbing the jar itself. 

“Hey, what are you doing?” The man who grabbed him from the bathroom asks. 

“Saving his life. Is that all right with you?” Mac shrugs. “I will need my knife back, though.”

The man frowns, but the leader seems to be willing to let Mac have what he asks for. “Give it to him.” Reluctantly, the man pulls out the knife and hands it to Mac. 

Mac can tell that Carlos is watching all of this with the eyes of someone who is well aware how far from normal medical standards this is, and who is also well aware that this isn’t the first time Mac’s done something very similar. 

_ He knows I’ve done this to myself. _ Mac feels oddly self-conscious.  _ I feel like he’s checking my technique.  _

He opens the pepper packets and is about to pour them into the pencil jar when Carlos shakes his head. “That thing’s full of germs, Mac. Just dump it on.” Mac nods, ducking his head a little. He thinks he hears Carlos mumble, ‘Lucky you’re not dead, with that concept of wound hygiene’. 

Mac sighs.  _ I’m under a little bit of stress, I forgot. _ He can’t remember how many times that was his excuse when he had to come to Carlos. That and “Mama Bozer (or Deja) was going to catch me, I had to wrap it up and pretend to be fine”. 

Mac hands Carlos one of the pencils, rubbing it and his hands with the sharp-smelling bottled sanitizer. “Here, bite down on this.” Carlos wipes the pencil on his shirt and shoves it between his teeth before Mac pours on the pepper straight from the packets. The man groans softly, but gives Mac a smile when it’s over. 

Mac leans back against the bank counter, reaching down for his knife and the few other things he was able to gather and carefully pushing them back out of sight behind him. 

“Mac.” Carlos’s hand wraps around his. “You be careful.”

“When am I not?” But Mac already knows Carlos knows what he’s doing.  _ He knows if I get caught, it’s going to be bad. But he also knows it’s never stopped me before.  _

Mac separates a few pieces from the key fob, strips some of the wiring on the earbuds, and works on making a small transmitter and receiver.  _ I have to talk to Jack _ . He knows he’s probably going to get the lecture of a lifetime, but it’ll be worth it to hear Jack’s voice. 

* * *

OUTSIDE THE BANK

EXACTLY WHERE JACK IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE

“Excuse me, sir. All civilians will need to move beyond the police perimeter.” Jack shakes his head, stubbornly pushing the serious-looking officer’s hands off his arm.  _ I am not leaving until I get to my kid. _ Jack can’t believe the idiot ran into that building. He especially can’t believe Mac told Jack not to come with him.  _ I never should have listened. I should have gone in with him.  _ He almost did, but the kid had a pretty decent head start, and by the time Jack got close to the bank, Riley told him Mac had already been found and the robbers were starting to set up lookouts. If he’d tried to get in then, he’d probably have done more harm than good. 

Still, it scares him that Mac even attempted to make him stay out here.  _ He told me he wasn’t gonna chase James alone anymore. He promised. _ But this is the same attitude Jack’s seen in the kid’s actions ever since James’s threat.  _ He wants to protect everyone but himself. It’s fine if he takes risks, but he won’t let anyone else take them with him, no matter how much they want to. _

The more rational side of Jack says that this was the most strategic move anyway. Jack knows how Mac works, and he can help coordinate hostage negotiation around that.  _ Damn it, if Cage was here that wouldn’t be a concern. _ But she’s back at Phoenix, doing something top secret for Patty, and she didn’t have time to fly down here with them. 

_ Mac would want me to do my job out here, because that’s his best chance of getting home safe.  _ Jack turns to the officer trying to remove him from the scene. “Captain, I’m Jack Dalton, former Delta. My people and I were on the scene for all of this, so I saw everything that happened. You got five armed men inside, at least seventeen civilians. Now the good news is, they weren't expecting a hostage situation, so they are ill-prepared. The even better news is, I got a man on the inside.”

“Sir, I'm gonna have to ask you to please step back.” The officer is insistent, pushing Jack firmly. 

“Yeah, wait, I don't, I don't think you understand. I'm here to help. I am fully trained in hostage tactics from a little place called Quantico.”

“Sir, we're handling the situation. I'm gonna have to ask you to please step back.  _ Por favor _ ?” 

Jack can tell he’s going to get nowhere with this man. And pissing him off isn’t going to help Mac. He steps back, but pulls out his phone as he does, calling Matty.

“Webber, Dalton here. Um, it’s a long story, but…”

“Carlos happened to walk into the middle of a bank robbery, and got shot, and Mac ran inside and made himself another hostage? Riley filled me in.” Matty sighs. “Honestly I was expecting her to tell me you  _ both _ were hostages, so hearing your voice is actually a relief. For once.” 

Jack doesn’t have time to joke around. “Listen, I think we're gonna need a little hand with the local authorities down here, they're being, uh, well, less than cooperative.” 

“I’ll handle it.” Matty hangs up, and Jack joins Riley and Bozer behind the barricades. 

“So what are we gonna do, just stand here and watch?” Bozer asks.  

“Not if Matty has anything to say about it,” Jack says. “Watch this.”

The police captain answers his phone, then flinches. He holds the phone away from his ear, wincing, and Jack can almost hear the voice on the other end from where  _ he’s  _ standing. Riley chuckles. “Oh, yeah, that's definitely a call from Matty.”

“Damn, she works fast,” Bozer says. 

“Indeed she does.” Jack steps forward when the captain beckcons him to, pulling Riley and Bozer along behind him.

“Looks like we're gonna be working together,” the captain says, extending a hand to Jack. Jack takes it and shakes it firmly. 

“Thank you, Captain.”

* * *

Mac continues fiddling with the wires and other bits of his tiny, makeshift radio.  _ Jack would have been making jokes about me messing with his dad’s ham radio by now.  _ He tries not to think about how much he wishes Jack was in here right now.  _ He’s safer out there. It’s better for everyone.  _

He looks over at the young teller he was talking to earlier. “Hey, Lucy, is there a way to get out of this building from the second floor?” The robbers are all watching the first floor windows, but they’ve brought all the hostages down here to keep track of them, so they don’t seem to be concerned with what’s happening up there. 

“There’s an emergency fire exit window. It's next to the drive-thru lane.” She says. “But the storm ripped off the fire escape stairs. We’d have to jump.”

“Maybe not.” Mac reaches back toward a coil of ethernet cord sticking out from behind a desk. He slices it free with his knife, keeping an eye on the robber closest to them. It’s the man who yanked him out of the bathroom, and the guy seems more interested in what’s going on outside the window than what’s happening inside. 

Mac cuts a few more coils of cable and begins carefully knotting them together. He made a rope ladder for the tree house in Mission City back when he was a kid, and he’s pretty sure this one will be better. His original one fell apart, so he started climbing the tree itself. Which is how he fell and broke his ankle all those years ago. His leg hurts just thinking about it. 

He shows Lucy how to tie the knots, then gets back to work on his radio. He still hasn’t found the right frequency, and all he’s hearing is painful static. 

He tries to keep his voice down as he whispers into his makeshift mic. “Hey, Jack. Jack, can you hear me? Jack.” He has to keep quiet, but the longer this goes on, without any response, the more his voice trembles and wants to rise. He’s desperate for Jack’s voice, for any connection to him.  _ I feel so alone. _ He knows he’s not, not with Carlos there, and the rest of the people trapped in here, but there’s still an aching emptiness when he’s in trouble and Jack isn’t beside him. 

And then the buzzing in his ear becomes words, and Mac feels like crying in relief.  “Hey, Mac. It's good to finally hear your voice, man. Took you long enough.” The scolding tone belies the tremor in Jack’s voice that matches Mac’s. He must have been worried sick. “How's it going in there?” 

Now that he can hear Jack, Mac feels like a thousand pounds lifted off his chest. “Carlos is fine. He's alive and stable for now, so is the cop that got shot. No other hostages have been harmed. Um, but most of the robbers are downstairs stealing money from the vault right now.” He saw the leader go down a few minutes ago to see about the progress loading the money up. 

“Okay, okay, that's good, but what's the plan, homie? I got a dozen SWAT guys out here ready to rock and roll. We'll come in that front door and join the party. You just say the word.” Mac can hear the tension in Jack’s voice. He’s worried, he’s unable to see what’s happening, and he’s desperate to get Mac back. Now. 

“At this point, that would probably just get people killed.” Mac says. He knows Jack knows that, but the man loses any sense of practicality when Mac’s life is on the line.  _ He would burn the world down to save me. _ And not that Mac doesn’t love the man for it, but he’s not going to put other people at risk. “I'm gonna start releasing hostages.”

“That sounds great, Mac. How?” 

“Uh, well, I don't know yet. Just have someone waiting by the drive-thru lane for hostages.”

“Copy that.” Jack says. Mac hastily yanks the earbuds out and shoves them in his pocket just as the man at the window turns around with a scowl. He must have heard something.

Mac flinches when the man walks up to him. “Hey, shut the hell up over here. Or I’ll give you something else to keep your mouth occupied, pretty boy.” Mac shivers.  _ Not this again. _ He thought the guy’s weapons check on him was more thorough than really necessary. 

When the man turns away again, he breathes a tiny sigh of relief.  _ He’s already on edge, clearly, if my talking bothered him. He’ll be the perfect one to distract. _ And the truth is, Mac wants this guy to be the one the leader blames for letting hostages get away.  _ If the guy in charge is pissed off at him, then hopefully he won’t let this guy do whatever he wants. _

Mac turns back to Lucy. “Hey, uh, where do you keep your dye packs?”

* * *

Riley shakes her head with a small smile as she walks over to where Jack is pacing and hears him mumbling. “Come on, Mac, just make those little hamsters in your brain spin the wheels a little bit faster and figure this out, will you?” His voice changes, his impression of Mac isn’t great but it’s also not bad. “You do know that's not how brains work, right, Jack? Yeah, yeah, thanks for the Neurology 101 lesson, Professor. Just figure it out, will you?”

“Hey, Jack?” Riley says. “You okay?”

“No, I am not okay. Mac is in there by himself trying to be some big damn hero and the kid’s gonna get himself killed.” Jack shakes his head. Riley knows it’s bad, if Jack’s openly admitting he’s scared.  _ But then again, it’s not just this, it’s every worry that’s been piling on since they started hunting James. _

“We’ve got a SWAT team standing by, why aren't we going in?” Bozer asks. “We could get him back.”

“No, Boze. It’s too much of a risk. He could get caught in crossfire, any of them could.” 

“So we just stand down?” Bozer asks. 

“For now.” Jack sighs. “I shoulda gone in there with him. I never shoulda listened to his dumb plan. I should be there lookin’ out for him.” He’s pacing again, shoulders tense. 

“Jack. He’s going to be fine.” Riley is pretty sure she believes herself. Mac is a trained agent and he spent years as a vigilante. He knows what he’s doing. But she knows why Jack is so afraid.  _ Mac promised not to do things like hunt James on his own. And now he’s gone and done something else risky by himself, and Jack wonders if Mac will do it again when it comes right down to the moment of truth. _

“Um, Jack?” Bozer asks. “You’re not...cracking up or something, are you?”

“No, Boze, why?” 

“Well, you were just talking to yourself as we walked around the corner just now I thought I'd ask.”

“No, no. I wasn't talking to myself, okay? I was role-playing. I was role-playing a conversation that I'd probably be having with him if I was inside that bank. Now, you know he's cooking something up I'm just...You know, figure a way to help.” 

Bozer nods. “When you do...tell me?” He sounds almost as afraid as Jack.  _ He’s watched Mac do stupidly brave things longer than any of us.  _ Being around Carlos this week has reminded Riley that Mac had a dangerous life long before he joined the Phoenix. Sometimes the realities of his past, especially the pieces of it before prison, don’t really sink in. This week, they’ve been painfully clear. 

_ Mac, please don’t do something all of us will regret. _ But she knows she, Jack, and Bozer have already come to the same conclusion.  _ Mac will do whatever he has to to protect the people in that building. Even if it means getting himself killed. _

* * *

Mac looks down at the makeshift bomb in the coffee mug.  _ I really hope this works.  _ He can feel Carlos staring at him, the man hasn’t said anything since Mac patched up his leg, but that means he’s worried and very not okay with this.

_ He was always quiet when he had to patch me up after something really bad. _ Mac remembers the man’s sadly disapproving looks, the way Carlos would never outright tell Mac he should stop, but the way he showed his concern with silence. _ He didn’t want me to give up on trying to make the city better, but he sure wished I didn’t take so many risks. _ But it was the only way to help people. So is this.

Mac leans over to the few people closest to him and begins to whisper softly, the robber’s awful threat still echoing in his ears. “Okay, guys, as soon as the guard is distracted, run up the stairs as fast as you can, open up the window you told me about.” Lucy nods. “Hook that ladder onto something that'll hold you, and then climb down. My friends will be waiting. Okay?”

And then he tosses the mug across the room. It smashes in a corner, and the man at the window turns around, startled. He hurries over to the smashed mug and turns it over, and then yells when the dye pack explodes in his face. 

“What in the hell?!” 

“Go, go, go.” Mac pushes Lucy and a couple of the other bank customers toward the stairs. He’s glad to see that one of them is the youngest person in here, a girl who might be thirteen or so. She was the only child, and he was hoping she’d be able to get out. He can barely breathe, watching the little group run for the stairs. The robber is still swiping at his face and yelling, and Mac winces as the gun in his hand waves about aimlessly. 

“What the hell?! What the hell? What is this? What is this? I can't see!”

“Ash?” 

Mac had almost forgotten about the fifth robber. The man rushes in from the back, where he must have been posted as a lookout, and Mac grabs the ankle of a woman who was just starting to follow the others. “Stop. Don't go. It's too late.” She stops, huddling back against the counter. 

There’s a thudding of footsteps on the stairs, and the rest of the robbers reappear with the manager. The leader is red-faced and furious-looking. “What the hell's going on here?”

The man Mac figures must be called Ash looks up at him, face still stained blue. “I don't know, man. Okay? I just went over to the door to check it out, because I heard something over there, and then this happened to me. It was one of them! It was one of them. Somebody set off one of them dye packs.”

“And just happened to shoot you in the face with it?” The leader is livid, snarling like a rabid dog. “Someone tricked you and good, Ash. Did any of the hostages get away?” 

“I don’t know, man! I couldn’t see nothing.”

The leader stalks over to the line of hostages, walking down the row and counting with the end of his gun. When he reaches the end, he sighs. “Three. Three hostages are missing. And all because you let them outsmart you.” He turns his gun on Ash, and Mac’s blood runs icy. As much as he detests the man, he doesn’t want to be responsible for anyone’s death. But the leader appears to reconsider, turning back to the hostages. 

“I want all bank employees, except for my friend, the manager, over here, now.” He walks down the row, checking the hostages for the nametags that mark them as employees. “Get up, now. You, get up. And you. Let's go, right over here. On your knees, right here. Hurry up! Get down. On your knees.” Slowly, the remaining employees comply, kneeling on the floor in a line. “The rest of you, put your hands up, now. Up.” 

Mac does so, glancing over at Carlos as he does. The man looks pale, a few beads of sweat glimmering on his forehead.  _ He needs medical attention, the real thing, soon. _

“Somebody's trying to be a hero here. And since only bank employees would know where you keep the dye packs, you four are my prime suspects.” The leader walks down the line, pointing his gun at each of them in turn. “Was it you? Look at me.” The first man shakes his head mutely. 

“Was it you? Hmm. What about you? Hey? Look at me.” The woman, the same one Mac stopped from following the others when the second robber came in, is shaking. “You look like a troublemaker. I think it was you.”

The leader cocks his gun, aiming it at the woman’s head. She makes an incoherent sound of protest, staring at the ground, trembling. Mac glances from her to Carlos, who looks resigned and exhausted. Then he stands up.

“Then you'd be wrong. 'Cause it was me. I'm the one you want.”  _ Well, I’ve done it now. _ He can’t take it back, and whatever happens from here on out is his own fault anyway.

* * *

LOS ANGELES

2012

_ Carlos shakes his head. “Mac, that’s not what I meant when I said you needed to be more careful. This is the exact opposite.”  _

_ The kid bleeding on his exam table gives him a halfhearted shrug and a snarky half-smile. “Never was much good at listening to doctors’ advice.” _

_ “Well, you better get better at it, and soon. Cause I haven’t learned how to bring people back from the dead yet. And I would want to, just so I could kill you myself for being such an idiot.” Carlos pulls Mac’s shirt away from his side, cringing at the sight of a long knife cut along the kid’s side.  _

_ “It needs stitches, doesn’t it?” Mac asks dully. “Didn’t want to do them myself, still no good at it.” _

_ “You  _ think _ it needs stitches? You’re lucky your guts aren’t hanging out, kid.” MacGyver has a disconcerting tendency to downplay his injuries. If he claimed he had a small cut on his arm, Carlos would be ready and waiting to deal with an amputation.  _

_ He cleans and numbs the area, then gets started on the stitches. The only sign that Mac feels anything is a small crinkle at the corners of his eyes. The kid’s too young to be this careless with himself. Like some of the guys Carlos treated overseas. Mac reminds him of all too many young soldiers and bomb techs who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, kids who should have had their whole lives ahead of them.  _ Some I saved. Some, there was nothing I could do, or it was too late. __

_ “You need to look after yourself, Mac. This city can’t afford to lose you.” When he looks up, shock and amazement are swirling in the kid’s eyes, along with a suspicious shimmer of tears that even the stitches hadn’t been able to coax out. _

Is he really that shocked that someone thinks he’s valuable and important? _Carlos wouldn’t put it past the kid, really. He’s seen enough young gang members in here who came from broken and abusive homes to recognize the signs. Mac seems surprised when anyone says something positive about him, he tries to take care of himself as if that’s the only thing he knows how to do, and he acts like it won’t matter if something happens to him, like no one could be bothered to miss him._ _Carlos has seen a lot of heartbreaking things. A tour and a half in the Sandbox and four years of inner-city medical work have shown him some of the worst parts of humanity. And he still doesn’t think he’s seen too many things sadder than the way Mac drags himself in here after a fight, barely slowing down long enough to be patched up before he throws himself back into the only thing he believes gives him any worth._

_ He’s never seen anyone quite like this kid. Angus MacGyver is the kind of hero Carlos was beginning to think only existed in the pages of the comic books in his waiting room.  And he’s glad the city has him. He just wishes this kid wasn’t forcing himself to be a hero for all the wrong reasons. _

* * *

Mac honestly isn’t sure what’s going to happen to him now. So when the leader puts the gun away and walks up to Mac, glaring, he’s more than a little surprised. But that’s not nearly as shocking as the punch to the gut that doubles him over, leaving him gasping for air.

“So you free my hostages,” the man says angrily, punctuating his words with a fist to Mac’s face, forceful enough to send him to the floor, “and you've been talking to the cops.” This time it’s a kick to his ribs that leaves him gasping. He struggles to push himself upright, grabbing the arm of a chair for support, but the man kicks him again, knocking him back to the floor. A fist cuts across his cheek, and he rolls over, spitting out blood from a cut inside his mouth. 

“I should just kill you right now.” The man kicks him again, and Mac can’t stop the yelp of pain. “Show the others what happens when you try to be a hero.” Several more punches and kicks rain down, and despite the way he’s curling up to try and protect himself, Mac feels every one land with aching force.  _ Is he going to try to beat me to death?  _

That’s a horrifying thought. Mac watched more than one guy get beaten in prison brawls, and it’s a brutal, painful way to get killed.  _ I always hoped if the cartels ever did manage to get me, they’d make it fast.  _ If this goes on too much longer, he’s going to end up with internal injuries, and he can’t help a tiny shudder at the memories of Kazakhstan. 

He knows he has one rib that’s close to broken, and a few more are definitely cracked. And then another kick lands with devastating force and Mac changes that assessment to at least one definitely broken rib. Probably two.  

And then the man leans down, grabs Mac by the hair, and yanks him to his knees, pressing the gun to his head. Mac blinks against the pained tears the rough handling is forcing out of him.  _ Don’t cry. At least it’ll be over soon. _ And then there’s a shout from somewhere behind him.

“We got a problem, man!” One of the other robbers is yelling. “They called in the SWAT team.”

Another guy speaks up, angry and sharp, and out of the corner of his eye Mac can see a glare that’s leveled on him. He can’t really bring himself to care, between the feeling that his scalp is slowly being ripped off and the pain from his broken ribs and the way he’s being forced to kneel, he has enough problems already. “Losing those hostages makes it look like we're losing control. And we're not losing control!” 

“We got to get out of here, now.” The leader doesn’t let go of Mac, but he does relax his grip, just slightly. 

“How are we gonna do that? This was your idea.”

The angry man speaks up again. “I say, we get some of those hostages, we use them as shields, and we shoot our way out of here.”

“And what about the rest of them?” Another man, who hasn’t spoken much so far, asks. Mac thinks this guy isn’t quite as brutal or cruel as the others.  _ Just got caught up with the wrong people. The kinda guy Carlos would have helped back home. _

“They all seen our faces, they all got to go,” the leader says, and Mac feels the cold muzzle of the gun against the bottom of his jaw again.

He swallows around the fear choking his throat. “Hey, I know nobody asked me, but if your plans don't get you all killed, it'll damn sure get you all caught, and every dead hostage tacks on another life sentence.” The grip in his hair shakes his head from side to side slightly, and he flinches with the pain. “Look, I can get you out with the money, without anyone firing another shot, but you got to promise me that no one else gets hurt.”

The leader bends him so far backward he feels his broken ribs shift, and he groans. “Why the hell should we trust you?” 

“Because I just made a radio out of a pair of headphones and snuck three hostages out of the bank without you noticing. Using Ethernet cable and a coffee mug.”

The man lets go of his hair, shoving him forward, and Mac drags in a grateful, slightly less painful, breath.

“Okay, how?” 

“First, I need you to buy me some time. Get someone on the phone, have them start making demands. Ask for a helicopter, or something else hard to get.” Mac glances around the room. “And I need a few supplies.”

“Fine. But I’m keeping my eye on you the whole time,” the leader says. “No more tricks. Or you’re never gonna know what hit you.”

Mac is digging through the desk next to Carlos when  he hears the man whispering to him. “Mac?” Carlos asks softly. “You okay? That looked like a hell of a beating.”

Mac shrugs, even though the action makes his ribs scream in pain. “I’ve had worse, you know that.”  _ But then again, he only ever saw the aftermath.  _ Carlos never watched Mac get beaten or stabbed or shot. He just patched him up after the fact.  _ Seeing it in person must be rough. _ He can only imagine that what’s going through Carlos’s head right now is a litany of Mac’s past wounds, now with vague mental images of what caused them. “I’ll be fine. We all will. I have an idea.” 

“Hey. Shut up.” The leader waves his gun, then glances at what’s in Mac’s hands. “How the hell is all that gonna help us get out of the bank?” 

“Counterfeit detection pens are full of iodine, which will react with, um, you know what? I can give you a chemistry lesson, or I can get you out of here.” Mac heads toward the supply closet and rummages around until he finds a jug of ammonia. “We don't have time for both.” Actually, they do, he could talk while he worked, but what Mac is planning is a sort of two-part ploy.  _ I’ll get them out alright, then knock them all out in the sewers.  _ Just like he did back in France in the cabin.  _ And if they realize not all of what I’m cooking up is necessary to get us out of here, it won’t be pretty.  _

“Fine. Do your thing.” Mac continues mixing things in coffeepots, careful to keep his makeshift chloroform under wraps. “We got a problem here?” The leader asks, watching as Mac slowly mixes some chemicals and avoids letting others touch...yet. 

“Not if you give me your word that you'll leave all the hostages behind. If that doesn't work for you, you can just shoot me now.”

“You have my word.”

Mac grabs the few bottles of things he can’t exactly add until they’re ready. He covers the top of the coffeepot holding his chloroform with a piece of a plastic bag, held on with a rubber band from one of the desks. He hopes the fact that he’s acting like this is all part of the plan will mean no one gets suspicious until it’s too late.

All of them head down to the lower level together. Mac gives Carlos a small nod and drops a tiny scrap of paper on the floor next to him. He’d scribbled a note down on it while he pretended to be writing down chemical formulas, all of which he can do in his head.

**_When you smell something smoky and chemical-like from the stairs, signal Jack and the team outside that it’s all clear. I’m not sure I’ll be able to come back, don’t trust these guys to let me go once I get them out._ **

He stumbles on the stairs, almost dropping everything when his ribs sear with pain. The leader glares at him and waves his gun, and Mac nods slowly. He understands exactly what will happen if he messes up. 

He dumps the last of the first mixture together directly on the floor, pouring a ring of his mixture of iodine and other chemicals, then adding the final ingredients on top. Almost immediately a noxious fog starts rising. He pulls up his shirt to cover his nose and they all back away from the area. 

“What’s that other stuff for?” the leader asks, eyeing the coffeepot still in Mac’s hand. 

“Neutralizes the gases once this stuff eats us our way out. We don’t all want to suffocate down there in those tunnels.” Mac hopes that with gases already swirling around, the men won’t notice something is wrong until it’s too late.  _ I want to use it right now, but it’s too risky. Once we’re in the tunnels, it’s a more confined space with no easy escape route. _

There’s a hissing sound and then a thud as the mixture eats all the way through the concrete and the section Mac made the ring around falls down into the sewer tunnels. “Is it ready?” One of the men asks.

“Yeah. Just don’t touch the edges when you drop in, and you’re home free.” Mac starts to step back.  _ Maybe they’ll be so focused on getting out that they don’t remember to take me along. _

He’s out of luck there, though. The leader pushes him forward, gun still jammed against his back.

“You first. If you’re lying to us, you’re the only one who’s gonna die.”

Mac drops down into the darkness, coughing as he’s forced to drop his shirt away from his face and inhale more of the chemical smoke. He lands in the ankle-deep water at the bottom, still keeping his grip on the second coffeepot, and looks up. “All clear. You guys can come down.” 

The sewer tunnels are dark and eerie, and the smell and cold, damp air drag him right back into his memories of Murdoc kidnapping him, of being chased through the tunnels below LA, drugged and confused and scared. He doesn’t like the idea of knocking himself unconscious down here with these guys, but it has to be done. He can’t let them just get away.

He waits until all the robbers are down in the tunnel with him. Most of them are coughing too. “Any time you want to use that stuff that lets us breathe, that’d be nice,” The leader snaps, and Mac nods.  _ Now or never. _

Mac smashes the second coffeepot against the wall.  _ It is like France all over again.  _ He hopes Jack realizes something is wrong and comes to find him. 

He was counting on the men being too distracted by the other gases to notice the chloroform acting, but it seems like luck isn't on his side today. The angry robber sniffs the air. “That don’t smell any better to me,” he says sharply. “Matter o’ fact, smells like you’re up to your tricks again.” 

The leader looks from his lackey to the shards of glass glimmering on the floor from the light coming in the hole, then sniffs the air. 

“Chloroform! Let’s get outta here!” Without fire to turn it to gas instantly, the mixture is slower acting, and there wasn’t enough time for it to have effect. Mac watches the men start to wrap their shirtsleeves or the ends of their shirts over their faces. He reaches for his own, but then a fist slams into his cheek and everything goes black. 

* * *

Jack adjusts the straps of his borrowed tac gear. The police issue kevlar isn’t as comfortable as the Phoenix’s advanced tech, but he doesn’t really care. He begged, borrowed, and did everything short of steal to be part of the breaching team.  _ If they go in, I’m goin’ in first and finding Mac, getting him out of the way. _

Beside him, the police captain is gearing up as well, but the man turns when another officer runs up, holding a phone. “Sir. It's them. They say they're ready to make demands.”

“It's about damn time.” The captain takes the phone, but Jack just shakes his head.  _ It’s been too long. They’re not asking for something they want, they’re stalling.  _ “This is Captain Delarosa of the San Juan PD. To whom am I speaking?” 

The phone is on speaker, and Jack can hear the voice on the other end. “My name doesn't matter. What matters is that I'm willing to make a trade. In exchange for not hurting any hostages, I want a helicopter and guaranteed safe passage off the island.”

“Safe passage to where?” 

“I'll tell the pilot our destination once we're on board. Those are my terms. They are not negotiable.”  _ I’ve used this trick myself before. Libya, with Sarah, when we went into that embassy seige and I conviced them we were sitting on a nuke. And there was that time in Brazil with Mac... _ He groans.  _ Mac’s behind this. Somehow. He has a plan. Just wish to hell I knew what it was. _

“Understood. I'll make some calls. But look, this whole thing goes a lot smoother if we establish trust. How about a sign of good faith? Send out a few hostages.”  _ Don’t push him. _ Jack doesn’t want to hear them start shooting on the other end of the phone. 

“How about you keep the three you got and get me a helicopter. Thirty minutes or someone dies.”

The caller hangs up, and the captain turns to the man who brought him the phone. “Get me the superintendent on the line, and find me an emergency service that can spare a chopper.”

“Yes, sir.”

Riley, who’s still pacing behind the barricades, walks up to Jack. “So now they suddenly want a chopper. Why didn't they ask for that hours ago?” 

“And we've all seen this movie. They got to know that nobody ever actually gets the chopper,” Bozer says. 

The captain is still talking. “If the Coast Guard can't spare one, call the hospitals. Someone has to have a helicopter.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jack steps up. “We need to go full breach, Captain, right now.”

The man glares at him. “We're in the middle of negotiating.”

“No, you're not. They just asked you for a chopper they know you can't get. I'm telling you, these guys picked this bank on this island because they are fully aware of what's going on in Puerto Rico right now.” It’s what Jack would do. It’s what he’s done in Delta and CIA ops around the globe.  _ Hitting in the wake of a natural disaster means not having to deal with as much law enforcement on top of the bad guys you’re after. _

“So you think they're stalling?”

“Call them back. Tell them you have a chopper that's fueled up and ready to take off right now. See how they respond. If they're serious, they'll take it. If not, you know they're holding out for something else.” 

“Hand me the phone.” The captain dials the same number that called with the demand, but there’s no answer. Jack smiles wryly. _ I was right. I just hope that we move in time to stop something really bad from happening. _

“No one's picking up. You were right.” 

Jack doesn’t even bother to say ‘I told you so’. He just turns to the tac team behind him. “Full breach.”

The chatter of breaching preparation is eerily familiar. Jack holds his gun ready, slowing his breathing, forcing himself to stay calm. “Battering ram, in position.” There’s the heavy thud and rending crash Jack recognizes as a door falling.  “Throw smoke. Go, go, go!” Jack bursts inside, scanning the room full of screaming people and floating smoke for any sign of his kid. 

“Jack!” Someone shouts, and for a moment Jack’s heart leaps, but then he recognizes the voice and it’s not the one he wanted to hear. Still, he turns toward it anyway. 

“Carlos! Where's Mac?” 

“Took him downstairs.” Carlos is leaning over, coughing, but he’s already on his feet, starting to move people toward the door. He’s ex-military all the way, Jack recognizes that discipline and concern. “Come on, everyone, let's go, get up.  _ Vamanos _ !” 

Jack runs down the stairs, only to be met with more smoke. He’s the first one here, and he didn’t throw a smoke grenade.  _ Mac, what were you doing? _ He starts to run down the hall and almost puts his foot in a steaming hole in the ground. He holds up a hand to halt the rest of his team members before they make the same mistake, and switches on his comms. 

“Carlos and the hostages are secure, but the robbers are gone, with the money, and MacGyver.”

_ They have Mac. _

Jack looks down at the hole.  _ Mac wouldn’t have let them just get away. He would have had some plan to stop them… _ and then the thought hits him like a freight train.  _ I know you too well, kiddo. _ He pulls off his mask for a second and takes a breath. 

Jack can smell the familiar scent of Mac’s homemade chloroform drifting up through the hole. He covers his mouth and nose again. “Mac released chloroform down there. We gotta go in and see if they’re all unconscious down there. Now!” 

* * *

Mac shivers. He’s sitting in something chilly. And wet. He blinks slowly, and the world comes into a hazy kind of focus. There’s some light up ahead, and then he hears someone moving beside him, feet splashing through water. 

_ Murdoc. He found me. He’s going to take me back there and he’s going to... _ Mac scrambles, trying to get to his feet, but his head is hazy and his body won’t move properly. His hands are trapped.  _ No, please, no, no, no… _

And then there’s a rattling clang and more light spills in, making Mac wince and blink. “We got a vehicle,” a voice hisses. “Bring him up.” Mac feels himself hoisted to his feet, and then someone is pulling his bound hands above his head. Someone else grabs his wrists and hauls him over the side of the hole. Mac screams when his injured ribs collide with the hard edge, but no sound slips past whatever hunk of cloth they’ve stuffed in his mouth as a gag. 

He’s shoved into the back seat of a vehicle, with one man on either side of him. The leader takes the wheel, and the man riding shotgun and the one who climbs in the very back of the SUV are both carrying guns. Mac hears the man in the back smash out the rear window. 

He cringes when he realizes one of the men next to him is Ash, the guy who was groping and threatening him earlier. The man has a hand on Mac’s shoulder, and the grip is too tight to be simply bracing him upright. “Hey, what are we gonna do with the pretty boy now?” he asks.  _ Please, please don’t give me to him. Please.  _

“This one is gonna get us off the island. And then…” The driver shrugs. “I’m sure someone like him could be useful.”

“He’s not going to cooperate, you know that!”

“I’m sure with the right leverage, he’ll do whatever we ask. And if not...well, we just might make as much off him as we got from that vault, if we play our cards well.” That’s not any more comforting than being given to this guy. In fact, Mac is almost wishing that’s all they wanted to do. 

Mac shivers, twisting his wrists harder against the cord holding them.  _ I have to get out of here. _ He’d rather get shot trying to get away than be sold on the black market or be responsible in any way for these men hurting more people.  _ Jack, please, find me. _ But he knows that’s probably going to be an impossible task. Jack isn’t coming, and he has to save himself now. 

The truck hits a pothole, and Mac groans as every bruise and broken rib is jarred painfully. He can smell salt air coming in through the smashed rear window. They’re heading for a marina.  _ If they get me on a boat, we can be gone. _

The vehicle swerves around corners, rattles down rough streets, and once bangs painfully over what Mac guesses was a branch in the road. And then they screech to a halt, the doors fly open, and Mac is dragged out onto the ground. Ash hauls him roughly to his feet. 

“There’s a lot of open water between here and where we’re going, but don’t worry. I won’t let you get bored.” Mac shudders.  _ Please, Jack, please, where are you? _

“Over here!” Someone shouts, and Mac is dragged along toward a boat idling near the docks. Beside it, a man is laid out limply in a tangle of fishing nets. Mac hopes he’s unconscious, not dead. And then he’s shoved into the boat, stumbling against the sudden swaying under his feet. The knock to the head and the chloroform are already making him dizzy. This is too much, and he chokes back a sick feeling in his thoat, leaning toward the edge of the boat to throw up. With the gag still in his mouth, this is going to suck. 

“Hey! Get away from there, you’re not getting away so easy.” Hands start to yank him back inside, and then there’s a sqeal of tires, a sharp cry, and the hands let go so fast that Mac lurches, tumbling over the side of the boat into the greeny-brown water.

He barely has time to suck in a shallow breath before he goes under. With his hands tied, he can’t swim, and he can only hope he floats back to the surface before he runs out of air. 

Something catches on the ropes. Whether it’s the anchor chain or part of the boat, Mac doesn’t know. All he knows is that it’s holding him down, under the water, drowning him. He thrashes, trying to get free, but that only uses up more of his precious oxygen. He’s going to die down here unless someone pulls him out, but if it’s the robbers who get him back, he’d almost rather drown. 

There’s a loud splash. Someone else is in the water with him. Mac can’t see who it is, when he opens his eyes there’s nothing but a black shape floating in the greenish light, and the salt stings his eyes too much. Hands feel over his shoulders and down his arms, and then someone is tugging at the ropes. 

Whatever is holding Mac down comes free, and strong hands pull him to the surface, rolling him on his back so his head is out of the water, yanking the gag away. He coughs and splutters, feeling someone cup a hand under his chin and start pulling him toward land. He’s dragged up on shore, and then there’s a concerned face leaning over him, brown eyes worried, water dripping off the short mohawk in his hair.

“J-jack?” Mac coughs and spits out more water. “Y-you found me.” 

“Mac! Mac!” Jack grabs him and pulls him upright. “Oh, kiddo, you okay?” Mac can only nod. Jack’s thumb runs over his lip, and Mac flinches. “Damn, kiddo, they really worked you over. Anything else?”

“Couple broken ribs, I think.” Mac takes a deep breath. He didn’t pull in too much water, thanks to the gag, so luckily his lungs don’t feel a whole lot worse.

“Don’t you ever run off on me like that again. You hear me?” Jack says, then pulls Mac into a hug. “You scared me, kiddo.” 

_ I want to promise him I never will. But I can’t bring myself to make a promise I might not be able to keep. _

* * *

SOMEWHERE IN SAN JUAN

“Jack, what are the chances you're calling to tell me you just saved Mac's friend, everything's fine, and the four of you are on your way to the airport as promised?” Jack sighs.  _ I wish, Matty. I wish. _

“Well, we rescued Carlos, but the other things on your wish list hit a bit of a snag.”

“Define ‘snag’.” Matty’s voice sounds more than a little concerned. 

“Well, the robbers escaped into the sewers under the bank with all the money and Mac. So we're tearing through San Juan looking for them now.”

“Is it weird that none of this even remotely surprises me? Okay, hang on. I'm gonna help you find our boy.”

Jack swings the wheel and Carlos’s truck fishtails into a side street. Bozer slams up against a back window and grunts. Jack glances in the rearview mirror. “Sorry.”

Matty’s started talking again, and he turns his attention back to her. “Your robbers are gonna be desperate for a way off the island. And if they're not complete morons, then they'll know that a plane is hard to get and easy to track. So my guess is they're gonna be looking for a boat.

I'm sending you coordinates to the closest marina to the bank.”

Riley’s tablet chimes. “Got it. We're about eight minutes out. Jack, take the next left.”

“H-Hold on. Matty, that's not the only marina on the island.” Jack knows he would never go to the easiest point of escape, not unless he had someone in the team who needed an immediate medevac.  _ Not that these guys have my training, but still. _

“No. But it's the closest, which makes it their most likely destination and  _ our _ best shot.”

“And I'm not disagreeing with you. But if you're wrong…”  _ We might never see Mac again. Or the next time we see him is on one of Riley’s creepy crawls through the dark web. I don’t know how she stands doing that. _

“I know, Jack.” Matty’s voice is soft with fear and concern. “But we have no other choice.”

Jakc glances in the rearview again. “Riley. Get sat views on all the marinas around here. Track everything coming in and going out, just in case we’re wrong.”

“That’s not gonna happen, Jack.” Riley is pointing up at the sky. “Cloud cover’s getting bad, this is a decent storm rolling in. I’m not going to be able to see anything out there.” Jack sighs and punches the steering wheel.  _ We’d better be going the right direction. _

He barrels down the street, ignoring tooth jarring potholes and remaining storm debris. “Entrance to the marina is right ahead,” Riley says. Jack plows through the gate, dimly noticing someone else has already done the same thing.  _ They’re here.  _

His relief is short-lived. He can see a group of men climbing into a boat, and then one of them lurches toward the side. He recognizes Mac’s red plaid shirt. Someone puts a hand on his shoulder, and Jack isn’t sure if the intent is to pull him back from the edge or push him over, but he doesn’t care to find out. He takes careful aim and fires, and the man jerks back, blood streaming from a wounded shoulder. And Mac topples over the side of the boat, hitting the water with a splash.

“Riley, cover them!” Jack throws her his gun, leaps out of the truck, and starts running toward the water. Riley will keep the men on the boat from trying anything, and now that Mac isn’t on it anymore they don’t have to worry about him being used as a human shield or getting hit in the crossfire. 

Jack reaches the end of the dock, plunges into the water, and starts swimming toward the boat. He can see a froth of bubbles and some vague ripples in the water where Mac went under, but the kid hasn’t come up yet. Jack can see something down there in the murky water near the anchor chain, and he sucks in a deep breath, dives down, and pulls out his tac knife from his vest. 

He feels around with his free hand until he finds Mac’s arm, then reaches down to his hands. Sure enough, the kid was tied, and his bonds are stuck on the chain. Jack cuts through the rope and drops the knife, getting both hands under Mac’s arms and shoving him toward the surface. 

He drags Mac back to shore, pulling him up on the beach and dragging himself up beside him. He leans over Mac’s still body.  _ Come on, breathe. Before I have to make you. _ And then Mac coughs, spitting out water and trying to sit up. 

“J-jack?” Mac whispers. “Y-you found me.” 

“Mac! Mac!” Jack grabs him, maybe a little roughly but he has him back and he just wants to be sure of that.  _ I am never letting go of him again. _ “Oh, kiddo, you okay?” Mac nods weakly. Jack shudders at the sight of red and purple bruises rising on the kid’s cheek and around his eye and mouth. He runs his thumb over what looks like a split lip, and Mac cringes. “Damn, kiddo, they really worked you over. Anything else?”

“Couple broken ribs, I think.” 

“Don’t you ever run off on me like that again. You hear me?” Jack says, then pulls Mac into a tight hug. “You scared me, kiddo.”  He doesn’t let go of Mac for a long time, and the kid makes no move to push him away. He can hear Riley and Bozer dealing with the guys on the boat, but it sounds like they have everything under control.

Finally, he stands up and starts helping Mac to his feet. “Mac, I swear to God I am gonna chip you like that Jerico kid.” Jack sighs. “The amount o’ times you’ve been abducted…”

“Jack, I don’t need a chip. I’m fine.” Mac sighs. He leans over, resting his shaking hands on his thighs. “Jack...what happened to your leg?”

_ Oh. _ Jack hasn’t really thought about it until this exact second, but now he can feel the pain and warmth of fresh blood. 

“It’s nothing, kiddo. Just popped some of the stitches in my little Die Hard souvenir,” Jack says, looking down at the spreading reddish-black patch on his leg. “It’ll heal.” He puts his arm around Mac’s shoulder. “Let’s go home, okay?” 

* * *

LOS ANGELES

APRIL 2014

_ Carlos half-expects to see Mac at the back door again this morning when he comes to unlock. Mac always comes to the back door now, so no one sees him in the waiting room, and Carlos has made a habit of going in the same door, just in case. The new clinic is nice, but he hates that the reason he had to move was that Mac’s friend Pena died trying to disarm a bomb left for Carlos in the old one. _

Mac’s been a little more distant since then, and I don’t blame him. _ Carlos blames himself for Pena’s death, and even if Mac won’t admit it, he’s sure the kid feels the same way. He still comes, for more and more injuries, though.  _ He’s getting careless. Taking more risks. _ Losing Pena really changed him. _

_ Carlos straightens up the back exam rooms, hearing the front door open and Kamila walk in. But instead of hearing her walk into her office, the door to the back rooms opens. He steps out of Exam Room 3 and into the hall to see his wife leaning against the wall, tears rolling down her face.  _

_ “Kami, what’s wrong?” _

_ Kamila hands him the paper with shaking fingers. Carlos skims the headline, then lets the paper fall to his feet. The words staring up at him from the carpet can’t be true.  _

_ “ _ _ Vigilante Phoenix Implicated in Warehouse Bombing and Civilian Death.” _

_ “No, he wouldn’t.” Kami is crying, and when Carlos pulls her closer, she leans against his shoulder, tears soaking into his shirt.. “Not Mac. He couldn’t do that.” _

_ “I know.”  _

_ “Someone must have set him up. Maybe the cartels. Can’t we do something?” _

_ “I’m afraid not.” The only thing Carlos might be able to do would be serve as a character witness at Mac’s trial. Mac wasn’t here that night, Carlos can’t give him an alibi. And he has no idea if the court will believe a vigilante.  _

_ He hates the thought of Mac going to prison. He knows a few of the guys who come in here who did time for their cartel involvement, and they’ve told him enough to make him afraid for someone like Mac. He’d be a target for revenge for his vigilante activity and also for the simple fact that to far too many people, he looks like a nice easy victim.  _

_ Carlos looks down at the paper again, knowing something that he took for granted has just changed, and things will never be the same. He looks out the window at the sunrise, wondering if Mac is already watching it through barred windows.  _

_ Mac doesn’t deserve this.  _

* * *

PUERTO RICO

PRESENT DAY

“Thank you, MacGyver, for saving Carlos’s life.” Carlos grins as his wife and daughter practically smother Mac in hugs. They’ve already done that at the medical station, and now it looks like the airport is time for a repeat. 

“ _ Mija, _ come here. They have to leave soon.” Carlos says. Adi runs over to him, wrapping her arms around his good leg. He could barely get her off long enough for them all to get into the truck and get Mac and his team to their plane. 

Carlos shakes Jack’s hand. “Thanks for looking out for Mac.” He and the wounded officer, as well as Jack and Mac, have been looked over by a medical team. Carlos’s leg is bandaged, and he can conclusively say this isn’t the worst he’s had. The injury that sent him home from the Sandbox was much, much worse. 

Now the team is getting ready to fly out, thankfully going home instead of the mission Mac had hinted they were going to need to leave for. At least their boss has the good sense to know that the team has two operatives who need a little time to recover.

“Hey man, I’ll see you soon,” Mac says. “Matty’s sending some more people down to help finish your house, but I’m gonna come back as soon as I can.”

“I’ll hold you to it, we’ll have a proper housewarming party when the place is done. You be careful, Mac.” Carlos pulls him into a hug and then lets go, watching Mac walk off toward the plane with the rest of his family. He turns back to his own, Kami leaning against the driver’s door of the truck, ready to take them home.  

“What’s wrong?” Kami asks when he walks up and leans on the passenger door, tucking his crutches inside. 

“Mac. He looks like he did back then.” Carlos sinks down in the seat. “I know how he looks when he’s fighting a war on his own, and I see it in his eyes now.” He shouldn’t need to be doing that, he should be relying on his team, but he doesn’t seem to want to.

Carlos feels Kami’s fingers wrap into his.  _ There’s nothing we can do to stop him, I already know that.  _ He can only hope that Mac doesn’t get himself in so deep it’s another two years before someone comes to save him. 


	23. UFO+Area 51

###  222-UFO+Area 51

OVERSIGHT’S OFFICE

SAM WAS NEVER HERE

“There’s still no sign of suspicious activity from anyone in R&D.” 

It should be good news, but Sam doesn’t feel that way. Weeks of scouring the Phoenix for a mole have turned up nothing. Riley’s regular network scans flagged an intrusion from a location inside Phoenix, an unknown device that cracked their firewalls though R&D’s subnetwork. But so far, none of the R&D employees are acting suspiciously, and the fact that all techs’ personal devices are heavily encrypted and weekly scrubbed for spyware means it’s virtually impossible that one of them was hacked. 

Thornton barely looks up from her desk, where she’s breaking down and cleaning her favorite old Glock, the one that Sam would guess she’s had since her CIA posting. “And I’ve been combing all of the communication logs. Aside from Wilt Bozer’s encrypted transmissions to his CIA girlfriend, there’s nothing incoming or outgoing on our networks. If there is an external breach, it’s impossible for me to find.” And with the amount of sensitive equipment in the labs, there’s no way to hunt for what one thing is sending information-carrying signals out of the Phoenix, not without specialized diagnostic equipment the techs themselves would need to use.  _ Which would mean a lot of questions and a lot of rumors we can’t afford to let circulate _ . And if they ask the wrong person to help them, they’ll be playing right into the hands of the mole themselves.

“Could Riley…”

“I won’t risk drawing her into this, not yet. It’s possible James MacGyver has cut off communication with his inside informant, or that they’re using alternative methods to pass the information.” Sam is all too familiar, in the age of hackers and malware, an old fashioned dead drop is still one of the gold standards of passing information without being caught. “I don’t want word of this going further than us, that hasn’t changed.” 

Sam can understand why. Riley might feel obligated to tell Mac about this new development, and Sam doesn’t want to consider the chain of events that might set in motion. She did Mac’s entry eval and she’s seen him in action, she knows how he reacts when he can in any conceivable way be blamed for putting other people at risk.  _ He spent two years in a supermax because he pled guilty to a crime he never even committed, because he  _ thought _ he was dangerous. _ She has a feeling letting him know that because of him, James flipped someone in Phoenix, would be similarly catastrophic.  _ If we could just find the mole ourselves, it could lead us back to James, and we could end this chase once and for all. _

Patty leans back in her chair. Cage can see the few thin lines of silver in her normally jet black hair.  _ This job is taking more of a toll than the field every did. _

“Riley’s weekly network scans haven’t detected any more anomalies, no outside intrusions?”

“None that have been sustained long enough to break encryptions on the high-level servers, most are the typical random malware attacks or viruses the tech team’s kicked off the network.” 

Sam glances out the window at the clouds drifting in. She feels the darkness creeping closer.  _ Somewhere in this place, there’s a darkness none of us can see.  _ She knows Patty is remembering Walsh, and the disasters he caused.  _ If someone else does the same amount of damage, the Phoenix is done. _ They’ve had two near misses already, and Cage knows the CIA won’t permit a third without consequences. 

Someone who’s doing what James’s spy has could doxx every agent in the building, and across the globe. And yet, they’ve confined their theft of intel to one single piece of information. The fact that Patty was sending someone to interrogate Walsh.

“Keep looking. Sooner or later, whoever this is will show their hand, and I want you there when they do.” Sam nods. “I’m flying out tonight, there’s a situation in Iran that needs some...personal attention. I won’t be able to communicate with you or the team until it’s over. It may be a week or more.” 

Sam glances from the gun to Patty’s face.  _ She only goes in the field if she absolutely needs to. _ And clearly she’s trusting Sam to handle anything that happens in her absence with their mysterious information thief. “Of course, Oversight. If I find the mole, I’ll deal with them myself.” 

* * *

THORPE’S THERAPY RIDING CLINIC

BEST WAY TO SPEND A SATURDAY

“Jack, this is...not Silver.” Mac stares at the tall bay horse in front of him. 

“Well, no, cause she’s in Texas. This would be Blaze.” Jack is saddling his own mount, a buckskin gelding whose nametag on his halter reads “Pancho”. “Listen, Ryan says that’s the quietest horse here. And I don’t think he’d lie to me. Now, he might give _ me  _ the bronco, he still wants to get me back for that camel in Morocco, but he wouldn’t take it out on you.” 

“Why are we here?” Mac asks. 

“I was told riding counted as PT. So, I decided to come see an old friend.” Jack chuckles. He turns around at the sound of wheels on the gravel path leading up to the trailhead. “Thanks for the loan of the horses, Ryan.”

Ryan Thorpe chuckles. “Any time, Jack.” He spins his wheelchair around and looks up at them. “Horses are good for anything that ails your legs. Or...you know, your lack of them.” He grins at Jack. “First thing that really helped me get stronger after the surgery was taking up therapy riding. Now I know what you meant about the horses becoming part of you, Jack. I thought you were just braggin’ up the Texas ranch life, but you weren’t kidding.” 

“I told you they’d get under your skin if you gave ‘em a chance.” Jack chuckles, slapping his own mount’s shoulder affectionately. “This is quite the operation you got going on here.”

“Well, word gets around. Seems there were more old soldiers than me who thought horses were a good way to heal.” He looks around at the barns and the men and women walking between them, carrying pitchforks or walking horses to the paddocks. “Sometimes it’s nice to have someone to talk to who doesn’t psychoanalyze you.”

Mac nods. “Yeah, they’re good listeners. I have a dog.” Jack honestly thinks bringing home that puppy is one of the best things he’s ever done. 

Ryan grabs his phone out of his pocket as Jack swings up on his horse. “Hey, give me your best Texas cowboy pose, I’m gonna send this to the Deltas group.”

Jack grins, leans back with one hand on the saddle horn, and reaches the other toward his horse’s tail as if he’s fanning it’s haunches with an imaginary cowboy hat. “They’re gonna love this.”

Thorpe nods. “Deacon’s talking about bringing his kids up soon, getting them some lessons and doing some family rides.”

“Oh yeah? Well, tell him to drop in, my door’s always open. Well, almost. I might be out of the country. Still, I’d hate to miss seeing him. And the kids. It’s been a while since it’s been more that Christmas card photos.” He thinks the twins were two the last time he saw them in person.

“One of these days, Jack, we need to get the old gang back together. All of us.”

“Yeah, but we oughta keep Fitzy and Mac away from anything flammable, agreed?” Jack can only imagine the kind of chaos those two would be capable of unleashing if they were in the same room. 

“Hell yeah.” Ryan grins. “Well, I got a lesson I’m giving at ten, so I gotta get over there. Have fun, and try to keep Pancho and Blaze out of trouble for me?” 

“Will do, man.” 

Mac’s phone buzzes just as he’s about to step from the mounting block into the saddle. He stops and pulls it out. “Uh-oh. Just got a text from Matty.”

“Mac, we agreed. No working this weekend. None. Not after Puerto Rico!” Jack feels like grabbing the phone out of Mac’s hand and flinging it in the creek that’s meandering past the trailhead. “One more weekend without a near death experience for you. Please.”

“Jack, it sounds important.”

“Not more important than some father-son bonding time, though!”

Jack can’t help smiling when Mac doesn’t balk at him saying father and son.  _ He’s finally getting it through his head that that’s how I see him and nothing is gonna change it. _ “Listen to this, Jack. And I'm just quoting here, ‘Something crashed in the Nevada desert and we cannot identify what it is’.”

“Matty found a UFO?” 

“Yeah, sort of, but... 

“No, no, no. Hey, Ryan?” Jack calls after the retreating figure. “Can I take a rain check on this big boy?”

Thorpe laughs. “Yeah. Anytime, sure. Sounds like duty calls, huh?”

“Or E.T. Phoning home.” Mac says, reaching for his horse’s reins. 

“Kid, you have spent too long around the one and only Jack Dalton,” Thorpe says.

Jack swings back out of the saddle, and Pancho snorts, nudging at him. “Whoa, whoa. Yeah, no, big guy, we’re gonna hit those trails soon. Right after I come back from investigating the invaders from outer space.”

Jack keeps up a steady stream of chatter the whole way back to L.A. He has to distract himself somehow from the fact that they’re going back into the field days ahead of schedule. He’s still not over the nightmares of Mac drowning before Jack can get him out of the water, or of watching that boat pull away with the kid still on it. He woke up close to screaming last night after dreaming of Mac being sold right in front of him, but being unable to move or say a word as Murdoc handed over the money and then reached for Mac with a sick smile. 

“What do you think we're talking about here? Huh? One of them big musical suckers like Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Or no. Ooh! Ooh! One of those, one of those fighters, yeah, from Independence Day.” 

Mac just grins and shakes his head, turning a paperclip into a horse. There’s one on the dash already that looks like a flying saucer. 

“Or-or, maybe, maybe, maybe a Cylon Raider, all metal skin, gooey inside, ooh. What do you think? What do you think? Little grey men?”

“I think it's probably the same thing I've told you a hundred times since we left the farm: it's man-made. It veered off course.”

Jack shakes his head.No, no, listen, listen. That's what they want you to believe. Don't be brainwashed, buddy. You're too smart for that.” He makes weird eerie alien sounds as he pulls into a parking space at the Phoenix. “Aliens are real, dude. And if I see Tommy Lee Jones or Will Smith coming up to me with that mind-erasing flashy thing, I'm clamping these peepers tight shut like this. I'll make myself pass out.”

“Jack, there is no such thing as a ‘mind-erasing flashy thing’.”

“I beg to differ, have you seen what they have down in R&D?”

“Yes. Because I’ve worked on it. No mind wiping machines down there.” Mac chuckles.

“No, no, you’re only saying that because they used it on you. Which just proves my point. It works, see?”

Mac rolls his eyes. Jack pushes open the War Room door only to have Matty glare at him and start pushing him back out. “Just where do you think you're going?” She asks in a soft, deadly voice. 

“In here to hear your briefing on finally making contact with an alien life-form.”

“Nope. You're not assigned to this.”

“Not… not assigned?”  _ No way in hell are they sending Mac without me, not after what just happened. _ “Now wait a minute, Matty, you said there'd be a real live UFO. So. if you didn't send for me, why am I here?”

“ _ You _ were Mac's ride.”

“His ride? Look, this mission has Jack Dalton written all over it. Well, me and one of my old Air Force buddies. The one who never could get them to spell his name  _ right _ . Wait,  _ was _ that with one or two L’s?”

“Jack, you are not going  _ anywhere. _ You have another week of medical rest. Might I add, this was forcibly imposed after your little stunt in Puerto Rico. You are not leaving this building. Mac and Riley are assigned to this operation.”

“But…”

“No. Riley is a Level Six. She is fully capable of watching Mac’s back as much as you are. I know Puerto Rico rattled you, but we can’t keep Mac out of the field forever. And you need to recover or you’ll be no earthly good to him. Besides, this one is a simple retrieval. Not even out of the country.”  

Jack sighs. “Can I at least listen to this?” Past Matty, he can already see Mac and Riley inside the room, looking over the briefing packet. 

“Fine.” Matty steps aside and lets him into the room. “Thirty-six hours ago, a mysterious object was spotted streaking through the sky over the Nevada desert. Civilian reports of a UFO were initially dismissed, but then a local rancher stumbled upon a crash and found the object. Cops were called in, then the military, who quickly retrieved the object and brought it to a lab for analysis.”

“So what is it?” Mac asks.

“Nobody knows. The military has their top scientists on this, but we still don't know what it is, who made it or why it fell from the sky, which is why an old friend of mine who’s heading up the research team reached out to Phoenix for help.” 

“So you want them to go in and get it?” Jack asks.  _ Just picking up some freaky alien doohickey from the army. When does that ever go wrong? _

Riley is studying the screen with a small frown. “Do we know anything about this thing? Do we even know what it looks like?” 

“No. The military is keeping a very tight lid on this. Look, everything that they've told me, I've just told you. Which is why I'm bumping up both of your clearances to give you temporary access to everything in the Phoenix databases. So you don't have to go through me for approvals.” Mac looks rather shocked. He’s still only a level two agent, although if all goes well and he passes the next round of field certifications he’ll be level three in another month.

“I’'m guessing there's a clock on this one?” Riley asks.

“Yes. Look, we don't know what this thing is, but we expect that someone's gonna come looking for it and we better know what it is before they ask for it back.” Mac nods, reaching for the backpack that’s been set on his chair. “You two are wheels up in ten. And guys?” Matty says as the two walk toward the door. “Yeah?” Riley says. 

“Be careful.”

“Aren't we always?” Mac asks.  _ Oh hell no you are not. I don’t think careful is a word in your vocabulary. _

Clearly Matty doesn’t think so either. “No. But I'm hoping this time will be different.” She turns to Jack with a small sigh as Riley and Mac disappear. “It’s just a retrieval, Jack.” But he knows when Matty is trying not to tell him everything. And he knows she’s doing it now.

* * *

SOMEWHERE IN NEVADA

DEFINITELY NOT A TOP SECRET GOVERNMENT LAB

Riley can tell Mac’s been nervous the whole flight out. He’s turned dozens of paperclips into everything from a tiny model of the  _ Millenium Falcon _ to a Star Trek insignia to a generic UFO complete with some sort of beam shining out the bottom of it.  _ He’s thinking about Jack, and all the alien jokes he’d make if he was here with us. _

Riley doesn’t think it feels right without Jack either. Now that she’s a level six, she’s run her own ops without him, but there’s something missing every time Jack isn’t at her side in the field. He’s a steady presence that she’s built her whole adult life around.  _ I can’t imagine anything different.  _

Mac’s hands keep going to the dogtags around his neck, tugging them and twisting the chain until she’s slightly afraid he’ll choke himself in the Humvee before they even get to the labs. He’s staring out at the dusty landscape, and for a moment, with the sight of the dogtags and sand, she can’t help but imagine what Jack’s world used to be. 

Mac looks up at the setting sun and the outline of a low building that stands out white against the sand, surrounded by shimmering coils of silver fence and barbed wire.  

The gate clatters open, and their ride stops inside, in front of a tall woman with silver-blond hair pulled back in a tight bun and cold blue eyes that feel like they’re boring through Riley’s skin when she steps out of the vehicle.

“I’m General Carter. Thank you both for coming.” The woman has the same demeanor as Matty or Patty. Riley recognizes it as the strength of a woman who fought her way to the top in a field that was supposed to be a man’s world, in a time when that was an even harder battle than it is for Riley herself. She shakes the general’s hand firmly. 

“Matty told me she was sending the best.” The woman studies both her and Mac. “No one else has been able to find out what this is. Myself included. I’m flying to Washington to brief the Secretary of Defense, but I’m leaving you two with one of the foremost recovery scientists we have. You’ll be assisting him and hopefully have some answers for me by the time I make my briefing in four hours.” 

“We’ll do our best, General.” Mac takes the security badge Carter hands him and clips it to his jacket, and Riley does the same. 

“The object is in a lab on the third sub-level. You’ll be working closely with Dr. Herman, one of our best recovery techs. Good luck to you both.” Riley watches as Carter climbs into the Humvee and heads back out the gate.

“Okay, Mac, let’s go check out our UFO.”

When Riley pushes the button for the elevator, there’s a long pause, and then the door opens and two men in white lab coats step out, both chattering angrily to each other. They almost run Mac and Riley over as they hurry past.  _ Whoa, that doesn’t sound good. _ Riley thinks she hears one of them say something about ‘Herman’.  _ Well, I guess we’re going to find out. _

When she and Mac step out into the lab, they’re greeted by the sight of a grey-bearded man in a white coat bustling around. He’s the only one in the room. 

Riley clears her throat. “Dr. Herman? I'm Riley Davis. This is MacGyver.”

The man glares at her. “Look, let's be clear. We're not going to be friends. Our superiors, in their infinite wisdom, believe a combination of new school and old school will yield results more quickly.” He sighs, waving some sort of tongs. “And I'm sure you're both the brightest bulbs at whatever absurdly named agency they pulled you from, but I've been back-engineering recovered technology for over 20 years, so…” 

“Doc. Just here to help, okay?” Riley shakes her head.  _ He’s kicking us out awfully fast. He hasn’t even seen what we might be able to do. _ There’s something about his brusque manner that’s immediately off-putting, but she tries not to focus on that.  _ He’s probably done the job his way for so long, he doesn’t want other people coming in and messing with his routine. _

“Great. Then keep quiet and try and stay out of my way. No one else they’ve sent down here has been able to help.” Riley thinks of the two scientists who walked out of the elevator.  _ No wonder they were pissed.  _ “I need to have something for the General when she sits down with the Secretary of Defense and I need to focus, not babysit a couple of kids.”

Mac speaks up hesitantly. “Einstein wrote the Annus Mirabilis papers when he was 26 years old, so maybe give us a chance? Another two sets of eyes couldn't hurt.”

The man frowns. “Guess we'll find out.”

Mac glances into the middle of the room, where a plain, glossy metal sphere is sitting on a table by itself. He hurries down the steps and over to it, hands hovering above the surface. Riley grins, he’s like an excited child and she loves seeing him like this.  _ Jack is gonna be bummed he missed out on seeing Mac go full nerd over a UFO _ . “Whoa.” His voice is quietly awed. 

Dr. Herman grabs his hands and pulls Mac away, and Riley watches him flinch at the violent physical contact. The pure curiosity and joy in his face is gone, shuttered down with fear and shame like someone slammed a window closed. Riley hates it. She stalks over to Herman, glowering. 

“He wasn’t gonna touch it!” 

“He’d better not.” Herman steps away. “Okay, go. Impress me.”

Mac is still rubbing his wrists and shooting frightened glances at the man, but he steps up to the sphere, clearing his throat and taking a few deep breaths, shaking out his hands. 

“Okay. No visible seams, so no way to determine how it was made or what it does.” He looks it over. “It appears to be one solid piece of metal. Is it heavy enough to be solid all the way through?”

“No. Its weight suggests that the sphere is hollow.”

“What tests have you done so far?” Riley asks. The man points to a board, one side is charted ‘Finished’ and one side is charted ‘Intended’.

“You're gonna run an optical emission spectroscopy test?” Mac asks. 

“Obviously.” Dr. Herman’s voice is dripping with derision, and Riley wants to punch him.  _ Maybe it’s a good thing Jack isn’t here, that man would be picking up his teeth after the way he handled Mac. _

“It removes a small amount of material from the object by irradiating the surface with a laser, which could damage the object.” Riley nods. She doesn’t spend as much time in R&D as Mac does, but she hangs out down there sometimes, and she gets Jill’s weekly briefings on the ongoing projects. She’s familiar with the type of test this is. 

“I'm aware. But I've tried everything else and this is the logical next step.”

“You know what, before we fire up the laser, may I suggest something?” Mac asks. 

“Fine.” Mac rubs his wrists again, and glances worriedly toward Dr. Herman before picking up the sphere and shaking it. 

“Hey!” Dr. Herman shouts, but Riley steps in between him and Mac before anything else happens. Mac gives her a small nod of thanks, then shakes the sphere again. 

“You hear that?” He asks, and she nods. There’s a faint rattling sound inside. 

“I’ll run a search for a DARPA project involving military situational awareness sensors suspended by weather balloons.” She reaches for her rig. “But...I’m not sure I would have touched that thing.”

“One of those tests on the board said it wasn’t giving off radiation.” Mac shrugs.

“No, I was thinking more along the lines of, you know, it shoots weird spikes that might impale us. Or it like...takes over your body like a parasite. Like Venom in that Spider-Man movie. That creepy ooze came from space.” 

“Very funny.” Mac sets the sphere down.

Dr. Herman leans over her shoulder as she types. “You're wasting my time. I already had that same idea. The file you're looking for is classified. I put in a request for a clearance waiver which is being fast-tracked.”

_ Oh, this is gonna be fun. _ Riley pulls up the file. “Got it.”

“Wait.  _ You _ have the clearance?”

Riley chuckles. “I know, right? It's amazing what they let kids have nowadays.” She hopes that burn stings.  _ After the way he treated Mac, he deserves it. _ She glances through the schematics on file, then turns to Mac. 

“Unfortunately, none of those DARPA sensors look anything like our sphere here. So, lost that lead.”

She hates the self-satisfied smirk on Dr. Herman’s face when he turns back to his tools. “Well, if you don't have any more helpful ideas, maybe we can start making some actual progress. Let's try the laser.”

Riley starts to close out of the file, then changes her mind.  _ Maybe Phoenix R&D has worked with something similar.  _ Jill’s last briefing was talking about improved weather monitoring systems that were durable enoughto withstand being sent aloft in severe conditions to help study tornadoes and hurricanes.

She logs into Phoenix R&D when something red-flagged pops up.  _ That’s odd. _ It’s a system flag on her entry into that particular subset of server networks, visible only to someone with Oversight-level clearance.  _ Why is Patty watching who’s entering the R&D network? _

Maybe she shouldn’t pry, but she hasn’t recieved any notices of hacking activity, which is usually why a network flagging protocol would be enabled. She hovers her fingers over the keypad, staring at Patty’s personal files blinking on the screen in front of her.  _ Once you do this, you’ve done it and there’s no going back. _

And then she clicks. There are hundreds of folders and subfolders in Oversight’s personal drive, but searching for R&D tagging narrows it down. The most recently opened folder has no name, only a date. And there are only two users listed with permitted access.  _ Oversight and CS133475.  _ Riley knows Samantha Cage’s user profile well.  _ Why are Patty and Cage keeping some secret file on R&D? _

She clicks it open, and then doesn’t have to wonder anymore. 

* * *

THE PHOENIX BASEMENT

JACK FEELS LIKE HE’S GOING TO GET GROUNDED

“Hey, Matty, what is this? I wasn’t even going to stow away on that jet in the undercarriage. I thought about it, but I wasn’t gonna do it. Okay?” Jack can’t figure out why Matty hauled him down here to the interrogation rooms. 

“First of all, you concern me. Second of all, this isn’t my call. I’m not the one who wants to see you.” Matty pulls out a chair. “But I think you might want to sit down.”

Jack frowns. “Okay, this sounds...ominous.”

“ _ I _ told Matty that I wanted to talk to you.” Sam steps into the room, pulling the door shut behind her. 

“What is this? An intervention?” Jack wonders if he should be worried that the psych evaluator wanted to see him.  _ Does she think I’m cracking up? That I’m being overprotective of Mac? That I’m losing it? _ Not that his nightmares don’t seem to be telling him that.  _ As long as Mac keeps doing this job, I’m gonna worry about him. Probably gonna have an ulcer in two years.  _

“No. A warning that I’m afraid might be a bit overdue.” 

“What the hell?” Jack asks. Sam and Matty both sit down just as he stands up. He’s not sitting down for this. He can’t. He has to be ready to move.  _ Are Mac and Riley in danger? _

“Someone in the Phoenix is hacking our network and sending information to James MacGyver.” Cage says.

“Wait, back that up. Someone in Phoenix is…”

“Handing classified information to James MacGyver.” Matty says. “Did she stutter?”

“No, but  _ Matty why the hell didn’t someone tell me? _ ”

“We’re telling you now,” Cage says. “For some highly sensitive reasons…”

“Highly sensitive my  _ ass! _ ” Jack is furious, and he knows he’s crossing the line, but how dare they keep this kind of secret? “Someone in this building is selling us out to a guy who wants God knows what from Mac, and no one saw fit to tell  _ him,  _ much less me?”  

“I wasn’t made aware of this myself until today, Jack.” Matty’s words don’t make Jack breathe any easier.  _ I’m tired of having someone in Oversight’s chair who wants to play God. I thought Patty would be different, that she’d understand how we agents feel about working in the dark. _ “And what exactly do you think either of you would have done if you’d known?” Matty continues sharply. “You would have made it your personal mission to destroy our mole, and forgive my saying so, but you are not exactly subtle. And Mac…” She doesn’t have to say it, Jack knows. Mac would have blamed himself and maybe even run.  _ He wouldn’t be able to stand the thought that James was able to put us all at risk.  _

Jack can’t help but remember those photos that were in the envelope Mac got months ago.  _ Maybe James didn’t take all of those pictures. Maybe his mole did. _ And whoever it is would be in the perfect position to enact James’s revenge if the team did go after him together.  _ No matter how quiet we tried to keep things, they clearly have ways to find out. _ And they’re close enough to kill, and obviously good enough to not get caught. The thought sends a horrified shudder down Jack’s spine. James knew exactly what he was doing, flipping an inside man. 

But that doesn’t negate the fact that for some reason Jack was kept in the dark. “Why am I the last to know? This is Mac we’re talkin’ about, and it’s my job to protect him!”

“Because up until today, James’s mole was silent. He or she stole one piece of information and then went dark. But today, they opened up our firewalls again, and they’re inside our network right now.” Sam says. “When I got the report that the system was breached I came straight to Matty and filled her in, and when she clarified that this wasn’t Riley’s new clearance-boosted profile logged in, then we came to you.”

“Well, let’s go hunt down the bastard and drag  _ them _ into this room and make ‘em sweat a little.”

“See, Jack, that’s exactly what I mean about your bull-in-a-china-shop approach to our problems.” Matty sighs. “I would love to do that…”

“But without Riley here, I can’t trace the origin of the hack without telling our general tech staff that there’s a mole hunt,” Cage says. Jack nods, that normally turns into a  _ witch _ hunt far too fast, and gives the real mole time to go under. “I don’t want to alert the mole that we’re onto them, so kicking them out of the network right now isn’t in our best interests, and neither is going table to table in R&D and interrogating our techs.”

“So what’s the play?”

“I want you, me, and Matty down there. Watching real-time. We know the hacker is in the building, right now. And sooner or later, they’re going to take what they’re stealing to James. We just have to be ready and waiting.” 

* * *

SUPER SECRET LAB

MAC THOUGHT THIS WOULD BE MORE FUN

Mac paces around as Dr. Herman readies his laser and re-checks the calibrations. He can’t put his finger on what he doesn’t like about all this, probably because there are too many things he doesn’t like. Like the fact that Dr. Herman seems to be blantantly ignoring anything he and Riley try to suggest, even though they were specifically called in to assist him.  

He reminds Mac of the old head of R&D that he got stuck working with the first time he got injured on an op.  _ Of course, Dr. Barstow turned out to be a traitor, working with Walsh and Omnus, so I guess that explained a lot. _

But even Barstow wasn’t as physically violent. There are red bruised marks on Mac’s wrists from the way Herman pulled him away from the sphere the first time he got near it. But it doesn’t really bother him that it hurt. The sudden, uncontrollable spike of fear was by far the worst part of the whole thing. He’s been grabbed like that before, and it’s never ended well. And this time, all he could feel were the ropes around his wrists holding him down to the anchor chain, trapping him underwater. 

He takes a deep, shaky breath, he’s not drowning, it’s going to be fine. Even if he did just relive a nightmare while he was wide awake. It’s bad enough that they come in the middle of the night. 

He glances at the sphere on the table. 

“Doc, before we fire up the laser, I just got to ask one more time, are you sure about this? 'Cause I'm having second thoughts.” He hates to argue with the man and make the guy hate him even more, but he just doesn’t like this. At all. Up to this point, he’s stayed quiet, but if something awful happens he at least wants to have said something. 

“I'm not.” The man’s voice is cold and angry. “It's my call. This is the test we're running. Now, stand back.”

Mac steps back, slipping on a pair of goggles to protect his eyes from the laser. There’s a burst of light, and then a strange sound and everything in the lab goes black, only to flicker back into the red gleam of emergency lights a few seconds later. Mac blinks and shudders.  _ Whatever we just did was really, really bad.  _

“What the hell?” The man asks. 

“What just happened, Doc?” Riley asks. 

Mac glances at the man, who is glaring like this is somehow Mac and Riley’s fault.  _ We’re the ones who told you not to run that test you idiot.  _ He decides to answer instead, as best he understands what just happened. “Well, the laser caused the sphere to emit a powerful pulse of energy that somehow shut down everything in the lab. In technical terms, I think we just pissed it off.”

“Great. Well, I’m going to see if my rig will reboot, or if Dr. Herman is about to owe me a new one.” She starts typing. 

“Well, the good news is that wasn’t an EMP, just a power surge that must have conked out some fuses. My computer’s still okay.”

“What’s the bad news?”

“The laser just activated something inside the sphere. Looks like it's putting out some kind of signal.” Mac hurries over to Riley’s side, where he can see an image of pulsing waves radiating out from a center. “Whatever it is, I think it just phoned home.”

* * *

Riley continues to watch the spreading signals from the unknown device. “Uh, I don't like the look of this, Mac.”

“Agreed. We are not safe here.” Mac is digging through some of the drawers and cabinets. “We need to leave.” He pulls out a few bottles and an extra lab coat, shoves the coat in a bucket, and starts dumping things in on top of it.  _ I hope that isn’t intended to explode. _

“What are you talking about?” Herman asks.  

Riley spins her rig to face him. “Take a look. Ever since you decided to zap the sphere, it's been sending out a signal with our GPS coordinates. Which means whoever built this thing is probably gonna be coming to get it back.”

Mac nods. “So if we want time to figure out who made it, we should probably get out of here.” He pulls the coat out of the pail, wrapping it around the sphere and patting it down tight to the surface.

Dr. Herman spins toward him and Riley’s half afraid he’ll bodily pull Mac away from the device again. “Whoa! What the hell are you doing?”

“I'm dampening the signal. The chemicals soaking this coat will block the sphere's transmission, meaning whoever's looking for us won't be able to track us.”

Riley looks up. “Like when Schwarzenegger wrapped his head in a wet towel in Total Recall.”

“Exactly,” Mac says with a faint chuckle. 

Riley rests her head in her hands. “Ooh, I've been spending way too much time around Jack.”

“I can relate. But did it work?” Mac asks. 

Riley glances at her screen.  _ That’s not right. _ “Yes, but...Mac, that device isn’t the only thing sending out a signal. Something else in here is, and we didn’t block that.” Riley says, then gasps as something hard presses against her side.

“I’m afraid we  _ really  _ can’t leave. Not until my friends arrive.” Dr. Herman’s voice is stone cold.

“What are you talking about?” Mac asks angrily, stepping around the table. Riley feels the gun jab a little tighter against her ribs, and shakes her head slightly.

“All my years working for the DOD and they never could pay a decent salary.”

“So you sold out.” Riley spits. She needs to buy herself a little time, move just enough where she can angle an elbow and get in a hard strike. “You contacted a buyer and led them straight to a military research lab where you were going to sell them latest in advanced weapons.” 

“And now I’m going to hand it over. And you two will be just two more victims of an unforeseen attack by someone looking to retrieve their device. And I...will be the lone, fortunate survivor.”

“As soon as they have that...they’re going to kill you. You have to know that.” Riley says. “You can’t trust them. But if you help us, we might be able to get you a deal.”

“I’m afraid I have already made my deal.” He glances at her computer. “Fortunately, they should already almost be here.” He glances from her to Mac. “Shame you had to figure that out. You were actually some of the most intelligent people who walked in here. But now, you have to die.” 

It feels like everything moves in slow motion. Riley jams her elbow backward and reaches for the gun, and there’s a hollow crack that echoes in her ears. She has time to think,  _ he’s a scientist, he didn’t train in how to hold a weapon, he had his finger on the trigger, _ before she feels it. Riley gasps as something hot tears into her side, just above the waist of her jeans. It doesn’t really hurt, not yet, but it will in a second. She drops to the floor just as Mac moves past her, grabbing Herman’s arm and slamming it against a cabinet. The man yelps and drops the gun, and Riley grabs it on instinct. Herman tries to pull away from Mac, but Riley swings her leg into his feet, and it knocks him off balance enough for Mac to get a better grip. He shoves the doctor toward the table with the sphere. Mac slams the man’s head into the side of the table. He collapses to the floor with a groan. 

“Riley!” He bends down beside her, pulling her to her feet, and she stifles a groan. “How bad is it?” She flinches at the sound of pounding and gunshots outside the door.  _ They really were almost here. _

“I’m good to run.” She has to be. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Mac looks up just as the rattle of gunfire gets louder. Riley hears a choked-off scream, and flinches. “Front door’s not an option,” Mac says shakily.

“Yeah. But my clearance let me pull the schematics.” She reaches for her rig, pulling it over to show Mac the last thing she opened. There’s a back door, just down that hall. Leads to a service elevator to a vehicle hangar; it’s a loading dock to bring bulky items down to the labs.”

“Great. Save your breath, you’re gonna need it.”  Mac shoves the coat-wrapped sphere into his own backpack, stuffs Riley’s rig in her own, and slings them both over his shoulder. 

“Wait. Phones.” Riley says. “Whoever...is coming might track us. Mac...ah...I can’t believe I’m saying this but I need your phone.” Mac hands it over, and Riley swipes up from the bottom of the screen, tapping an orange button that appears. The phone makes a buzzing sound and powers down completely.  _ That sends it into an untraceable lockout mode that can’t be overridden except with a special passcode. _ She does the same to her own.  _ Means we don’t have to trash the phones, we just can’t use them unless it’s an emergency. _

She almost chuckles.  _ I just got shot, and I’m not considering that enough of an emergency yet. _

Mac puts her arm on the uninjured side over his shoulder, and Riley takes a stumbling step forward as the pounding footsteps and gunfire grow louder. Mac stops, removing Riley’s hand and letting her lean against the wall, then runs back, knocking over a large cabinet in front of the doors and jamming some sort of long probe into the keypad lock. “It won’t hold them forever but it might buy us some time,” he pants as he runs back and grabs her arm again. “Let’s go.”

By the time they get to the cargo elevator, Riley’s feeling her wound. It’s a burning pain that feels like someone attached a ten-pound dumbbell to her side with a fishhook. She stumbles as the elevator shivers to a halt on ground level, but ahead of them is a jeep. And out of the corner of her eye, she sees two gunmen just entering the hangar.

Mac pulls her into a shambling run, heading for the jeep. The pain makes her want to curl in on it and try to stop it, but she knows this isn’t even really hurting yet.  _ And definitely not as much as it will hurt if I don’t get to that jeep. _

Mac shoves her in the backseat, jumps in the driver’s side, and fumbles for the keys in the visor. “Got them!” The engine turns over, and Riley sits up enough to see the gunmen turning toward them. 

“Go, go, go!” Mac floors it, and the jeep jolts forward in a rattle of gunfire.  _ Oh, please don’t get shot too. _ Riley doesn’t think she can handle it if both of them are hurt. The jeep flies out the doors, through the already mangled gate, and out into the desert night.

Riley’s already got three of the sanitary pads from her bag pressed up against the wound. It reminds her all too much of the time she got shot helping Nick. But this time there’s no Jack here to push down when it hurts and she wants to stop.  _ You have to stay alive, because otherwise he’s going to kill you himself.  _ Which reminds her…

“Mac, are you okay?” Riley pants. She thinks at least one shot hit the windshield, she can see a spiderweb of cracks in the glass. “And damn it, if you’re not honest with me I’ll...shoot you myself.”  _ There, I hope that sounds Jack-like enough to make him listen.  _

“I’m okay. I promise.” Mac says shakily. “And I’m gonna make sure you are, too, Riley. I will.” 

* * *

“Here, you gotta keep pressure on that.” Mac struggles to get his arms out of his coat and the button-down underneath it. He shoves them both back through the gap in the seats with one hand, trying to keep them on the road. “We can’t stop or they’ll catch up and kill us.”

“Mac, I’ve been shot before. I know how this works.” Riley takes the shirt and jacket from his hand. “The bleeding’s almost stopped, so I’m gonna wrap it and hope for the best.” 

“Yeah, but that’s a gut shot. You need a hospital.”

“Yeah, that...ah...may be hard to come by out here. Even if there was a hospital nearby,we left a blood trail back there in the lab. Those guys know at least one of us is hurt. It'd be the first place they check.”

“Unfortunately, you’re right. Which means there isn’t a lot more we can do except maybe get you to a medical facility that won’t let them in.” He has a plan. It’s a stupid plan, but it’s the kind of plan Jack would have that would totally work.

“So where we going?” Riley asks.

“Uh, do you trust me?” 

“Why do I feel like this is gonna be another one of your crazy ideas?”

“Because I’m going to shut off the headlights so no one can see us and drive us to Area 51.”  _ Okay, it does sound just as crazy when I say it out loud. _

“You mean Groom Lake?” Riley says. “Damn, Jack is really gonna be sorry he missed this.” 

“Well, it’s our best shot at surviving. A military base, top secret, fully operational, lots of medics and armed guards who can keep out just about anything. Should be safe there.” Mac’s pretty sure he’s right. If he’s not, it’s not just going to be a joke on him. It’s going to mean Riley dies out here.

“Yeah, unless, you know, they’re keeping tanks full of aliens in the basement and they all get loose and stick eggs in us.”   _ Okay, she didn’t say I got fooled but good, so I guess we’re okay. _

They only get a few more miles before Mac starts hearing a knocking sound. Riley’s still going on about the various horrible things aliens might do to them, probably distracting herself from the pain, but now the sound is so loud it’s drowning out her voice. 

“Seriously, Mac, if a freaky alien snake takes over my body, just shoot me and get it over with.”

Mac switches the headlights on for a moment so the dash lights illuminate.  _ Damn it, I was afraid that happened. _ The oil pressure gauge is at zero, and the knocking is louder than ever “Don’t worry, I’m sure the aliens are well under wraps. That's assuming we even make it there.” 

“What?”

“We lost oil pressure and the engine’s burning up. Probably already ruined if I can hear the knocking this bad.” There’s not really much he can do about that. He’s heard that sound before, and the engines that came into Weathers’s with it always had to be scrapped and either rebuilt or replaced.

Finally, the car just dies. They’ve made it a few more miles, but it’s not far enough. Mac pulls over and pops the hood, staring inside dejectedly. The moonlight tells him everything he needed to know. 

“Can you fix it?” Riley calls from the back seat.

“Ah...bullet hole through the radiator, I can fix. Bullet hole through the oil reservoir that drained us dry and wrecked the pistons? Not without an engine winch and more time than we’ve got.” Mac sighs, leaning against the jeep. “This vehicle isn’t going anywhere.” He slams his hand on the hood in frustration.  _ Riley’s hurt, and the fastest transportation to get her to safety is broken down.  _

“So what are we gonna do?”

 “Considering they're probably searching all the roads and we can't call AAA, I think we're heading to Area 51 on foot. Or, well, I am.” He glances at the jeep again, he’s got an idea. “The engine may be shot, but...I think this thing’s still got a few miles left in her.”

It doesn’t take too much time to turn parts of the jeep into a small cart. Mac’s built a few of these before, he used them to haul equipment around Weathers’s junkyard, and they were sturdier than wheelbarrows or hand trucks for moving around large pieces of machinery. 

“Okay, Riley, how do you feel about rickshaws?”

“Um, considering I almost got flung from one by an overzealous driver on a CIA op years ago?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be much more careful. Here.” He helps her into the seat he’s rigged up. She leans back, her face drawn and pained in the moonlight. “How does that feel?”

“Okay. Well, let’s move,” she says. “We’re not getting any younger.”

“Easy...for you to say.” Mac throws his weight into getting the contraption to move. “I’m starting to feel bad...for the horse Jack wanted me to ride.”

Riley chuckles, then groans. Mac concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other.

He’s actually oddly grateful for the chilly wind sweeping across the desert and biting through his t-shirt. Otherwise, he’d probably be sweating from pulling this thing. “How are you holding up back there, Riley?”

Riley groans. “I’m really, really starting to hate getting gut-shot. I’m tied with Jack now, which kinda sucks.”

_ She’s alive enough to be making dumb jokes. And wow she sounds like Jack. _ Mac stops for a minute, digs the water bottle that’s part of their standard packing out of his bag, and hands it back to here. “Here, keep drinking. I know it’s not the heat of the day…”

“But the desert will dry you out anytime. And I’m losing blood so it’s going to happen faster.” Riley raises an eyebrow. “I had emergency survival training too, you know. And I  _ know _ you’re not drinking any of this water, and you’re the one exerting yourself. So don’t give me any bull about me needing it more than you.” She hands him back the bottle. “I’m not drinking until you do.”

Mac takes a few sips to humor her. The water feels blissfully cool on his dry, raw throat, he could drink the whole thing right now. But he forces himself to stop and hand the bottle back. Riley scowls at how little he drank, but he did what she said and she can’t argue with him.

“Hey, Mac, look!” She points up to the sky, and he follows her finger to where a shooting star crosses the horizon.

“I see it.”

“Did you make a wish?”

“Um…” He hasn’t done that in a long time.  _ You kind of stop hoping on wishes when your life just falls apart. You stop dreaming, and you stop believing anything’s possible. _ He hasn’t wished on a star since he was six years old.  _ I never got Mom back, so I gave up. _ “Did you?”

“Yeah. That we won’t get lost out here.” She laughs. 

“Hey! I know where we’re going...or I did until you said that.” He’s suddenly unsure. “But...actually I think your star buddies might be able to make your wish come true.”

“Um...usually it takes people lost in the desert a lot longer to crack up.”

“I’m not losing my mind.” Mac rummages through his bag. “I’m going to make a sextant.” 

“Well, hooray for you David Bowditch, but you'd still need to know the coordinates of Area 51…” Mac grins and rattles off the numbers he knows by heart. “37 degrees, 14 minutes and six seconds north by 115 degrees, 48 minutes…and don't look at me like that. I was a really dorky kid, I know. But so were you if you actually know who David Bowditch was.”

“My mom had a book about him and I went through a childhood phase of wanting to be the captain of an old-time sailing ship. And since you just proved you memorized the coordinates to Alien Central, you lost the right to judge.” Mac chuckles at the thought of a young Riley waving around a stick sword and wearing a tricorn hat, pretending to be the scourge of the seven seas. 

He holds up his makeshift sextant to show her. “Now, all we got to do is measure the angular distance, of a few well-known stars, do a little math, obviously, and we should be able to calculate our exact location. But... I need a watch.” He hasn’t worn one since he took off his dad’s.

Riley hands him hers. “You’re lucky I went old school today. It went with my boots.” 

Mac loses himself in the haze of calculations for a few minutes, then looks up at Riley. “Okay, we are approximately 37 degrees, 12 minutes north by 115 degrees 47 minutes west. And if Polaris is there, that means we go…”

“That way.” Riley points. “I may not have been a big enough sailing nerd to be able to use star charts, but I know my compass directions.”

“Cool. Here you go, Captain Riley.” He hands her the sextant. “Little souvenir from our very land-bound excursion.” 

She grins. “All right, let's get out of here before bad guys come and kill us.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

* * *

“He’s stopping at that bus station.” Jack coasts the GTO into a parallel parking space, watching the R&D tech in question step out of his car. 

Andy Tucker is their best bet of being the mole. He was nervous and staring at his watch for the last three hours of his stint in the labs, he kept fidgeting and knocking things over trying to close screens when someone walked up to him to ask a question or when Jack, Matty, or Cage walked past. And when his shift was over, he practically ran to the parking lot and took off like a bat out of hell. Good thing Jack’s a precision driver.

“You ready, Cage?” He asks. 

She nods. This could be it. James might actually meet in person, or this might be a dead drop and he’ll show up later. Jack watches the man pull something out of his pocket, tuck it onto the pages of a paper someone left on a bench, and toss the whole thing in the trash. 

“Dead drop.”  Jack says. “When he comes back this way, grab him. We don’t want to compromise the site if James is watching.”

“But if he gets on that bus we might lose him.” Jack sighs. Cage is right. Clearly this guy knows something’s wrong, he’s been so agitated all day. He might be planning to split. 

“But if we show our faces and James has eyes on the place, he won’t come.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll go get him, and I’ll make it discreet.” Cage turns up the hood of her jacket and steps out of the car. Jack watches her walk up to the man, step in behind him, and lean forward. He can see the outline of the muzzle of her gun through her jacket pocket.

Whatever she says works. The man’s face blanches and he turns toward them. Cage walks him up to the car, opens the passenger door, and pushes him in, climbing into the back seat herself. 

The man stares at the gun in Jack’s hand, eyes wide.

“Alright, start talking or start losing teeth. What did you take off our servers this time?” 

The man is actually shaking now.  _ Wow, what did James see in him? _ Granted, the nervous ones are easy to flip, but they’re also a major risk.  _ He spooks easily. Maybe all James had to do was threaten him a little.  _ “Wh-what?”

“You dropped off something in that newspaper in the trash can. What was it?”

“A couple useless scratch-offs! Wendy hates that I buy them, I didn’t want her to see!” 

“What?” Jack shakes his head. “Don’t give me that bull, you hacked Phoenix’s network and stole some data, and now you’re leaving it for someone.”

“I didn’t hack anything! I swear!”

“Then what are you doing waiting for a contact?” Jack asks. “Pacing around and looking at your watch, waiting for a prearranged time, don’t lie to us.” 

“It’s not an information drop! I’m meeting my wife for dinner! She works second shift at Memorial!” The poor guy looks like he’s about to have an aneurysm. 

“Jack, I think he’s telling the truth.” Cage puts her gun away. “He’s too startled to make up that coherent a lie. And I bet if we ask Matty to check his records, we’ll see that his wife is a nurse.”

“Yes! Yes. I promise, I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then why did you get all worried every time someone came by your station?” Jack asks. Sam might be satisfied the guy’s not lying, but Jack wants a little more proof. 

“I’m not supposed to be using the work computers for personal use but I wanted to make a reservation at Aristo’s and I was told I’d just have to be online and waiting to pick up a spot if one opened.” He shrugs. “I thought I was going to get in trouble. But I didn’t steal any secrets I swear! I just wanted to make our fifth anniversary really special, and only a few places are open this late!” 

The bus stops, and a woman in scrubs gets out, looking around. Tucker points to her. “See, there’s Wendy right now!”

Jack nods. “Okay, fine. Go have dinner with your wife.” Tucker opens the door and bolts. 

“Damn it.” Jack sighs, holstering his gun. “Another dead end, and our mole’s had plenty of time to run off.” He looks at Cage. “Any more ideas?”

His phone starts ringing just then, and he pulls it out of his pocket. It’s Matty.

“Dalton here...” He doesn’t even have time to tell her that things went belly-up and they’re back to square one.

“Jack, I just got a call from the staff on site at the lab Mac and Riley were sent to. The facility was breached, five soldiers are dead and eight more are in the infirmary, and Mac, Riley, and the device are missing.”

“Damn it, Matty, I should have been there!” Jack feels like throwing the phone to the ground. He’s wasted his day chasing shadows and red herrings while Mac and Riley are in God only knows what kind of trouble.

“Apparently their lead scientist decided to profit off this particular piece of new tech they turned up. He contacted a very shady buyer who sent his mercs in to retrieve it. Needless to say, they were none too happy when he couldn’t deliver, and Dr. Herman is cooling his heels in the morgue. But we were able to access his computer, as well as the security cameras on the base, and we identified one of the men sent to retrieve it. Edgar Porter. Former wet works operative turned hired gun.”

“Oooh, he doesn’t come in peace. Porter’s bad news.” Jack pulls out of the parking space. “Get a tac team scrambled, Matty. I’m heading after them.” 

* * *

AREA 51

“You know, I kinda thought it would be more...exciting,” Riley mumbles.

Mac is inclined to agree. The whole base is dark, he found a gap in the fence with ease, and now he and Riley are outside a large hangar. 

“You know, if we can find alien weapons in here, maybe we can fight those guys off.” Riley sits up a little. “Just don’t touch any boxes that are vaguely the size of the Ark of the Covenant.” 

Mac chuckles just a little at her blatant Indiana Jones reference. And then stops laughing, because there’s someone holding a flashlight and aiming a gun at him. He blinks past the glare, it looks like a young woman in military fatigues with blond hair in a tight bun. 

“Show me your hands!” The blond woman snaps. Her gun is leveled at Mac’s throat. “Do it, now!”

Mac raises his hands slowly. “I promise, we’re not here to cause trouble.” _ But we did kind of sort of break in. _

“You tripped our perimeter sensors. What are you doing on this base?”

Mac looks toward where Riley is laying, she’s suddenly scarily quiet. “My partner is injured. She needs your medical team. And there are at least a dozen heavily armed men chasing us, so you should probably get a tac team ready to hold them off.”

“Nice try, buddy. I’ve heard it all. So unless you have something better than that, beat it.”

“I’m not joking. Look, if you guys have a landline we can call the Phoenix Foundation to confirm who we are. Or wait...Here, don’t shoot me, I’m just gonna show you our badges.” Mac can feel the gun on him as he grabs Riley’s badge and his own from the heap of jackets covering her. They’re not really ID, but they do prove someone trusted them enough to let them on a military research site. “We were called in to investigate an...object that was recovered, and there was a double-cross. One of the lead researchers sold it to a third party, and they didn’t ask for it nicely.” He can’t bring himself to care that Herman is probably dead because he couldn’t deliver on his promise.  _ He shot Riley, he would have killed her. _

Now that he’s not pulling the little cart, he’s suddenly cold. He hugs his arms around himself while the woman looks over the badges. “I’m telling you, you need to get Riley to your medics and more men out here on the perimeter.”

The soldier hands the badges back, apparently satisfied that he’s being honest. “We don’t have any more men. The only personnel on site are myself and my partner, who’s probably coming any minute.”

“What? H-how is that even possible?” Riley asks. 

“That’s classified.”

Riley shakes her head, she’s sitting up a little straighter. Mac wonders if sitting still and not being jostled around is helping. “Well, our security clearance is high enough to give you both a nosebleed. So why don't we just cut the formalities and you guys tell us what's going on here?”

“I found the pepper spray!” A man comes racing around the corner of the building. “Oh, you got the gun.”

“Of course I did, Siler, there were perimeter alarms going off at three a.m.” She shakes her head. “Thanks for the backup anyway.” She glances at Mac. “He and his partner are claiming they’re on the run from an ambush. And she got shot, which I can see isn’t a lie.”

Mac is getting impatient. “Seriously, guys, we need to get somewhere safe. There are probably a dozen armed mercs headed our way.”

“And she says you two are all that’s left to d-defend the place.” Riley tries to stand up, then groans. Mac shakes his head, running over and looping his arm under her shoulder to get her on her feet. He hates doing it, but they can’t really take the cart inside through doors. She’s going to have to walk a little more.

Siler shrugs. “Well, I guess the brass got tired of everybody knowing where we test our new jets, so eight months ago, everything and everyone in Area 51 got moved to a new location. We’re just here until they finish pulling the last of the heavy equipment. Basically it’s a formality, keeping the people looking for aliens from climbing all over the place.” 

“So we have no backup, aside from you guys.” Riley sighs. “Well, let’s take this inside.”

“I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced,” Siler says as they walk inside, into what looks like a small office.There’s a couple old computer monitors up, cloaking the room in a greenish-blue glow, and Mac breathes a tiny sigh of relief at the landline phone the lights illuminate, sitting on a desk. “I’m Private Robert Siler.”

“Um, I’m MacGyver, and this is Riley Davis. We’re with the Phoenix Foundation.” 

The woman barely looks up from the monitors. “Captain Melissa O’Neill. Any chance you could also introduce us to your friends in the two vehicles that just tripped our perimeter sensors?” She sighs. “Damn it, I hate uninvited guests.”  _ They’re closer than I thought.  _

“You two seen any combat?” Mac asks.

“No, both of us are in research and engineering.” But from the stiffened shoulders and alert eyes, both Siler and O’Neill are ready for it. 

“Well, I think you’re about to get your first experience.” 

* * *

THE PHOENIX FOUNDATION

NOT WHERE JACK OUGHT TO BE

Jack thinks he can be forgiven for slamming a door on his way into the situation room. “Matty, what’s the staus of our tac team?”

Matty looks up. “You have a fully ready team and a chopper prepared to leave, and your gear is stowed on it so you can tac up en route.”

“Then I’m on my way.” Jack stops short when his phone rings again. He doesn’t recognize the number but he answers anyway.  _ What if this guy got Mac or Riley or both and wants to bargain with their lives? _ He hates not being right there on the ground with them.  _ Not that that helped all that much in Puerto Rico, Mac just went off and did his lone wolf thing all over again.  _ “Dalton here.”

The voice on the other end is shaky but wonderfully familiar. “Jack?”

Jack almost drops the phone “Mac? Kiddo, are you okay?”

“I-I’m fine Jack.” His voice is shaking, just a tiny bit. “But Riley got shot, and now we’re holed up at Groom Lake and there’s no backup, there’s only two soldiers here, and whoever wants that thing we have is coming after us.”

Jack takes a deep breath.  _ Don’t freak out. If you freak out, Mac will freak out. You can’t afford to have that happen. Riley’ll be okay. Because you’re gonna go get her. Right now.  _ “Hang on, kiddo, I’m comin’ to get ya.” Jack spins on his heel. “Matty, I’m wheels up  _ now. _ ” 

“Good. And hurry, Jack.” Matty’s voice is stiff. “Someone else is breaching the labs. Right now. I think that thing’s real owners just came knocking.”

* * *

Riley watches as Mac fumbles through the bare lockers behind the desks. “Do you guys at least have a decent medical kit around here? If I don't get her antibiotics soon, she's gonna go septic.” She can already feel a fever starting, but she hasn’t wanted to say anything to Mac yet. He’s worried enough as it is.  _ He can’t get mad at me, this is what he does every time he gets hurt.  _

“Got it.” O’Neill emerges from a doorway, handing the kit over to Mac, who starts rummaging through it. “This is all we’ve got for armaments as well.” She holds up two handguns and a rifle. “Most we’ve had to shoot with them was a rabid coyote.” 

“Well, hopefully we won’t need to do any shooting.” Riley knows Jack is coming, thanks to Mac calling him from the landline, they just have to wait long enough for him to get there. “These guys are trained killers, and our best bet is to hole up and wait for our tac team to get here. This is a big base, they’ll have to search it all, and it’s going to slow them down.” 

“How long do we have before they're...um...knocking at our door?” Riley asks.  

“Uh, I'd say about ten minutes, max,” Siler says, glancing at the computer screens. 

“Is there anywhere more defensible than this hangar?” Mac asks. “Something with thicker walls, sturdier doors, no windows?”

“Yes. Follow me.” O’Neill grabs up a flashlight and her handgun and starts off down the hall. Riley leans on Mac’s shoulder again, only to find that he’s not planning on helping her walk at all. He leans forward, depositing her in an office chair. 

“Fits through the doors,” He says with a small smile. 

Riley grins.

O’Neill leads them down a hallway to an elevator, then down to what seems to be a basement level. There’s nothing on the walls except a few strange stains.  _ Yikes, not creepy at all. _

Siler pushes open a door marked ‘Morgue’. “Okay, folks, most secure spot in Area 51, and you’re standing in it.”

Riley glances around the room. There’s a sheet-covered table in the middle, and both walls are lined with those weird pull-out drawers that give her the creeps. “Why is there a...super reinforced morgue in Area 51?”

“For this,” O’Neill says with a serious frown, then reaches over, opens one of the drawers, and slides out...something withered, grey, and very not human. Riley gasps and lets out a tiny shriek.

“Sorry, couldn’t help ourselves,” Siler says, grinning and holding up the ‘alien’s arm. “He’s just rubber. Say hi, Thor, you have guests today.” He waves the alien’s arm around. Riley sighs.  _ I have blood loss and the beginnings of a fever, or they’d never have been able to fool me. _

Mac helps her lie down on a medical gurney and wheels her through the morgue into a room that looks like some sort of creepy lab. But it does have heavy doors and thick walls.  _ And I guess if we die, this is as good a place as any to do it. _ She chuckles a little in spite of herself.  _ You certainly have Jack’s morbid sense of humor. _ It makes her miss him just a tiny bit less. 

“This area is reinforced steel, and has its own security system. Nobody's getting in here.” Siler nods to the door. 

“That's perfect.” Mac pulls the sphere out of his backpack, as well as the bottle of the chemical mixture he’s been using to dampen the signal. Riley can see that the coat’s almost dry.

“Okay, what’s up with the Martian basketball there?” O’Neill asks.

“We have no idea, but it’s whatever those guys out there are willing to kill for.” Riley wonders if Dr. Herman knew what it was already when he called to sell it.  _ Guess we’ll probably never know. _ Since he failed to deliver, he’s probably dead. Mac squeezes the last of the liquid over the sphere, even shaking the bottle just to be sure it’s empty. Riley licks her cracked lips, they did the same with their water bottles miles before they got here. 

She gratefully accepts a weird-looking beaker of water from the sink along with the two pills Mac hands her. “Take these, and...promise not to die?” Mac asks with a lopsided smile. 

“Sure.” She swallows them down; this isn’t the first time she’s had to make do with field antibiotics and it won’t be the last. Hopefully. 

“Can you guys grab the, uh, table right there, and put it up next to the door for me?” Mac asks. 

Siler frowns. “That's reinforced steel right there. Those windows? They're bulletproof. Nobody's getting in here.”

“Except for maybe bad guys who don't like to lose, and want their weird metal basketball back.” O’Neill says. She shrugs, glaring at the item on the table. “And my guess is, they want it for a little more than shooting hoops.”  

Mac nods. “So can we play it safe, and hedge our bets?” 

“I think there’s enough equipment in here to build an electric arc welder.” Siler says, glancing around. “If you want a little more reinforcement.”

“That’s...exactly what I was thinking. Nice work, private.” Mac says. “Wanna help me with that while I whip up some goggles so we don’t blind ourselves?” 

Riley watches while the others scramble around, securing the morgue the best they can. And then she sees it. A strange wiggling coming from under the cloth over the sphere.  _ Wow, whatever was in those meds was strong. Or the fever’s getting worse. _ But the vibrating, jiggling motion just doesn’t stop. 

Riley would rather look stupid than not say anything. “Uh, Mac?” 

“Yeah?” He turns around, still holding his welder and pushing up his glasses slightly. 

“Do you see that?”  _ I’m not sure if I want him to say yes or no. _

“What the hell is that thing?” Siler asks.  _ Okay he sees it too.  _

“Still not sure…” Mac walks over slowly and tentatively pulls the cover off the sphere. 

Riley sits up a little. “Whoa, whoa, Mac. What are you doing? The signal’s gonna start sending again.”

“Yeah, but I have to test a theory.” Mac holds his welder closer to the surface of the sphere, and it looks like it’s...melting? 

“That’s definitely not your average basketball,” O’Neill says quietly.

“I think the current flowing through my welder is somehow interacting with the sphere, causing it to vibrate.” Just as Mac says it, the whole metal skin drops away, spreading out on the cloth in a rippling puddle. 

Riley bites her knuckles to keep from gasping in shock. “I told you, Mac! It is Venom.” 

Mac is examining the metal cage underneath, and the computer components inside it. “This isn’t a parasitic alien slime. I think it’s one of the new gallium alloys that can be reshaped on the fly with an electric current. That's why the sphere doesn't have any seams. The electromagnetic interference from my welder disrupted the current in the sphere's surface.”

O’Neill speaks up. “Which changed the atomic bonds in the solid metal and made it melt into a liquid.”

Mac gives her a surprised grin. “Exactly.”

“My mom’s an astrophysicist and I graduated MIT summa cum laude for chemical engineering.” She glances down at the wire cage. “I think I know what this thing is. The liquid metal skin, it allows it to reshape itself mid-flight, which means it would be radar-invisible and able to penetrate heavy armor.”

“Well, that explains why it wasn't detected flying over American airspace.” Riley shifts, trying to make herself a little more comfortable on the gurney.

“So, is it some kind of drone?” 

“No. Considering it has an advanced guidance and targeting system, and room for an explosive payload, I don't think this is a drone.”

“You think it's a missile.”

“Yes. A highly sophisticated, virtually unstoppable one. Or at least a prototype. Something like that could change the balance of power in war zones around the world. That explains why your friends want it so badly.” 

“Which is why we absolutely must not let them take it,” Siler says. He takes the safety off his pistol and glances at the door. “We’re the only thing standing between them and one of the most dangerous WMDs in the world.” 

“Okay, so I guess you better stop staring at that thing and finish welding that door, right, Mac?” Riley asks. 

“Change of plans. If these guys want the sphere back so badly, well, we'll let 'em have it.” 

Siler almost drops his gun. “What?”

“I have a plan. Trust me.” Mac glances from Riley to O’Neill, who’s looking around the room and starting to get a small grin. Whatever Mac is planning, she’s figured it out too.  _ Well, this should be good… _

“Is this really necessary?” Siler asks a few minutes later, sitting on the edge of one of the pulled-out morgue slabs.

“Trust me, you’ll be safest in there.” Mac helps Riley lie down on her own spot. “If this goes according to plan, they’ll be trapped inside and we’ll all be able to leave. And if not...hopefully they won’t think to check inside here before they leave.” 

The cold slab under her back feels like a strange premonition as Riley lays down.  _ Come on, stop freaking yourself out. This isn’t some kind of sign you’re going to die here. It’s just another one of Mac’s crazy plans. _ But she can’t quite shake the feeling. And she can’t die without giving Mac the truth.

She reaches for his hand before he pushes the drawer closed. “Mac, in case this doesn’t work…”

“It’s gonna work.”

“I mean, in case I don’t make it out of here…”

Mac shakes his head, grabbing her hand a little tighter. “Hey. Don’t talk like that. Riley, you’re gonna be fine. We’re gonna catch these guys, and get you to a hospital, and it’s gonna be okay.”

“Mac. I love you but please. Shut up for two minutes.” Riley puts her other hand on his arm, flinching at the sight of dried blood on her fingers. “Just...listen to me. There’s something I have to...to tell you.” It’s harder to breathe, lying down like this. 

“Okay.” It seems he’s humoring her more than anything, but that’s good enough. 

“When I...was in Patty’s files, there was a new one. Only she and Sam have access to it.” Riley sighs. “I’m a little too curious for my own good, so I...I opened it.” She swallows. “They’re...looking for a mole...who’s selling information...to James.” 

“No.” Mac’s voice is a breathy whisper. “No, no, no.”

“I didn’t have time to see much more, but... it looked like they’re looking for...for someone in R&D.” Riley says. “Be…be careful, Mac. Someone we think we can trust...is lying to us.” 

* * *

Mac really, really hopes this works. He looks across the table at O’Neill, who’s finished her part of the plan, putting her chemical engineering degree to good use. He holds up the welder. “Okay, if this works, we need to run and get in those drawers, fast. And if it doesn’t…”

“We won’t have time to worry about it.” She shrugs. Mac likes her. She’s a quirky combination of smart and sarcastic, with Jack’s sense of humor and Jill’s science knowledge. “Alright, let’s see if we can put this back the way we found it. More or less.” 

She carefully adjusts the dishes of chemicals on top of each other, and Mac reforms the sphere around them. It takes some work, and he can hear thudding in the distance. The mercs are probably going room to room searching for the sphere and the people who have it.

“Got it. Let’s go.” He and O’Neill each run for their own hiding places, pulling themselves inside the wall drawers and closing the doors just tight enough that it shouldn’t be noticeable they’re open. 

It feels like forever inside the cold metal box. Mac’s on the same side of the wall as Riley, and he can hear her shallow, rasping breathing.  _ Hold on, please, Ri. We’re gonna get you out of here and you’re gonna be okay. _

The door slams open, and Mac hears shouting and boots clattering.  _ I hope this is all of them. _ If not, maybe they can manage to take out the others. He pushes the drawer open just enough to see out. Six men have rushed in and it looks like they’re all going into the room with the sphere.

Mac jumps out, slams the door behind them, twists the key in the lock and snaps it off. 

Beside him, he hears O’Neill run up, and despite his frown,  _ she was supposed to stay in that drawer till this was over, _ she steps up beside him. 

The man inside glares at them, raising his gun. “You're only delaying the inevitable. We're gonna shoot our way out of here, kill you, all your little friends, and walk out of here with that device.”

“Wait. You mean this device?” O’Neill says, holding the metal framework from the inside of the sphere up with a smirk.

Mac reaches for the breaker box and throws the one that turns the exam room’s equipment on, and the welder next to the sphere crackles to life again. The sphere melts away, and as it does, the carefully placed tongs on top knock one dish of chemicals into the other. There’s a shockwave of an explosion that sends Mac and O’Neill staggering backward, and cracks the glass in the windows. But when Mac gets his balance back and stumbles over to look inside, he can see all of the men passed out on the floor.

He turns to O’Neill, who’s tossing the metal cage back and forth in her hands. “What were you thinking?”

“What?” She gives him an innocent stare. 

“You were supposed to stay out of sight.”

“Are you kidding? And miss the look on their faces when they realized they’d been had? No way.” She shrugs. “Besides, I wanted to see how my second-ever concussion grenade worked.”

“Second?”

“Well, I didn’t get formally suspended from MIT for two weeks for the  _ Simpsons  _ references in my senior thesis.” 

Mac shakes his head and hurries over to pull Riley out of the drawer. She looks so still and pale on the slab, arms crossed over her chest, and Mac flinches. Then she looks up at him and grins. 

“I’m not dead yet, Mac.” He breathes out a shaky sigh of relief.

They’re careful on their way back up, watching for any more of the mercs. There are two in a hallway on the ground floor, but Siler and O’Neill knock them out, tying them up in a storage closet. 

When they get back to the office, Mac turns his phone back on and calls Matty. “Hey Matty, we’re all good here.”

“Great. Jack’s on his way.”

“You can tell him he missed out on the fun. But also that it wasn’t my fault something blew up this time.”

“That sounds...like something I don’t want to hear anything about until I hear it when you’re back home.” Matty sighs. “Now, I’ve got a very concerned general in Washington D.C. waiting for an update. Can I transfer you to her?”

“Sure thing.” Mac waits a moment, before General Carter’s voice comes over the line.

“Agent MacGyver? I was told there was a breach at the Nevada facility.” 

“Unfortunately yes. However, General, we have secured and in the process identified the device. We ran into a little trouble, but thanks to a couple of very determined soldiers stationed at the Broom Lake facility…”

“Broom Lake?” The woman asks. “Was one of them a Captain O’Neill?”

“Yes…”

“Can you put her on?” Mac nods, and suddenly realizes the truth.  _ I thought she kind of looked familiar... _

“Hey Mom.” Captain O’Neill smiles. “I’m fine. Really. I swear. Thanks to Agent MacGyver. He went up against a team of armed mercs with nothing but a Swiss Army knife and a homemade welder. And won. Yes, Dad would love him.” She chuckles. “Just a concussion grenade. No, Mom, not as big as the one in the Tombs! The walls are fine.” She hands Mac back the phone, shaking her head. “Parents. Never stop worrying about you.” Mac forces a small smile.  _ At least yours do. _ He wonders what it’s like to grow up with a family who clearly supports you, who doesn’t give up on you when you mess up or do something dumb. 

He walks over to check on Riley. She’s been quiet since they got upstairs, and she feels even warmer. He can see a faint sheen of sweat on her cheeks. “She needs a hospital fast.”

“If you don’t want to wait for the tac team, there’s a couple jeeps in the hangar.” O’Neill grabs a set of keys off the wall. 

“Thanks.” Mac texts Matty to let her know that Jack should start tracking his cell signal, and drives out. Matty is going to call ahead to the nearest hospital and have them prep an OR so they can get Riley in as fast as possible. 

It’s not bad, driving at night out here in the middle of nowhere. There’s no one else on the roads, and aside from the fact that Riley’s mostly quiet in the backseat, it’s comfortable.  _ She’s going to be okay, you just have to keep going. _ Mac isn’t really going to be able to breathe easy until someone tells him she’s definitely going to make it.

He’s so worried about Riley he almost misses the lights up ahead in the road.  _ Whoa, whoa, who’s driving on the wrong side? Are they drunk? _ He hits the brakes in time to avoid a collision. But the car in front of him doesn’t move. And actually, there are two. Side by side. With the headlights glaring at him. And men standing beside them, barely visible in the blinding gleam. 

“Stop.” The voice is heavily accented, Eastern European if Mac had to guess. “Give us the device.” Mac sighs and rests his forehead against the steering wheel.  _ These are the real owners, and they must have tracked the bomb’s signal. _ He starts to step out of the jeep, slowly, holding the metal cage.  _ I have to keep Riley alive, which means not getting myself killed right now. _ They can worry about anything else later.

And then a brilliant blue light flashes down, and Mac flinches, squinting. The armed men in front of him are similarly confused, blinking and waving their guns around as if unsure where to shoot to make it stop. 

“Throw down your weapons. Now.” That voice is very, very familiar. There’s a series of thuds, and several black-geared men are suddenly on the ground, rounding up the guys at the cars and taking their weapons. One of them walks over to the jeep. 

Mac blinks up against the blinding lights. They’re making him feel lightheaded and dizzy. “Hey, Jack. Thanks for the backup.” 

“Any time, kiddo.” Jack says. “How’s Riley?”

“She’s got a fever, she needs to be airlifted right now.” Mac opens the side door of the jeep. 

Jack glances in. “Hey Ri, you hanging in there?”

“Sure thing, Jack.” She says, reaching for his hand.

“Okay, well, your chopper’s here, so let’s get you to that hospital, alright?”

Mac reaches for Riley’s arm, to help Jack get her on her feet, but misses by a mile. He stumbles, and all of a sudden he’s sitting on the sand next to the jeep.  _ When did that happen? _

“Mac?” Jack is bending over him. “I swear if they shot you and you lied to me…”

“Not shot. Just tired.” He just wants to sleep for a while now. And it’s cold. He shivers and rubs his arms, he never got his shirt and jacket back. 

“Whoa, hey kid, easy now. I think you might need the hospital too.” Mac tries to protest, but Jack is helping him up, and he’s so warm, and mac just needs to rest for a few minutes...

* * *

PHOENIX MEDICAL

NOT WHERE RILEY WANTED TO SEE HER MOM

“At least this time you won’t tell me you were in the hospital for a bad case of appendicitis.” Diane says, smiling weakly. 

“You know that excuse only works once anyway?” Riley chuckles, then regrets it as the movement pulls stitches and sore muscles. 

“It  _ was _ an excuse the last time, wasn’t it?” Riley only nods.  _ After Nick and Chrysalis and everything... _ “And...and the car crash that summer?” Diane sounds almost afraid to ask. 

“Gunshot to the chest.” Riley pulls down the shoulder of her hospital gown to show the still-visible scar. “That’s why I stopped wearing tank tops around you.” 

“Oh baby.” Diane’s eyes are shimmering with tears. “You could have died and I would never have known you did it trying to save the world.” 

“They  _ did _ have to take my appendix out this time.” She grins; it feels as necessary to defuse the sudden flood of emotion as any bomb she’s ever met. “So I guess maybe I’m actually lucky that I don’t have to worry about that now?”

“You’re just lucky you’re alive.” Diane says, squeezing Riley’s hand a little tighter. “When Jack called and said you were hurt…”

“I’m sorry I scared you.” Riley says. “But this is what happens sometimes.” 

“I know, baby.” Diane says. “Now, I’m sure everyone else is anxious to see you. They let me come in first, but they’re all waiting.”

“I want to see them too.” Riley says. Diane opens the door, and Jack, Cage, Matty, and Bozer walk in. She looks for Mac, but doesn’t see him. Honestly she would have been almost surprised if he was here. He passed out almost as soon as the tac team showed up, like he was only staying on his feet long enough to get her safe. The last thing she heard before she went under was that he was going to be treated for mild dehydration, exhaustion, and hypothermia.  _ He gave me most of the water, dragged me across the desert, and gave me his jacket, I’m not surprised. _

“Good to see you awake,” Jack says, enfolding her in a gentle hug. “We were all starting to worry.”

“Ah, I was fine. You know it.” The damage wasn’t extensive, and after she was patched up in Nevada she was taken on a medical flight back to L.A., ostensibly to a clinic that would do some cosmetic work on her scars.  _ It’s a good excuse to get me back to Phoenix medical. _ She hates spending time laid up anywhere, but she’d rather be here than in some random hospital.  _ I was lucky, the bullet didn’t hit anything vital.  _

Bozer hands her a vase full of sunflowers, and then sets them on the table by her bed. Riley grins as Sam and even Matty hug her.  _ I couldn’t ask for better family. _ But it feels incomplete without the one conspicuously not in the room. 

“Where’s Mac?” She asks, pushing herself a little more upright.

“He’s still in here too, getting his fluid levels back up.” Jack says. “Idiot decided the best way to save you was to half-kill himself. Not that I’m not grateful he got you back in mostly one piece, but…”

“He was really scared.” Riley says, remembering the look in his eyes before he shoved her into that morgue drawer. “He was scared I was going to die and he was going to have to tell you he failed, that he didn’t keep me safe.”

Jack sighs, running a hand over his face. “Of course that’s what he thought. How long is it gonna take him to realize that he doesn’t have to be responsible for everyone’s fates?” She can tell it’s a rhetorical question. Mac will probably never stop thinking there’s more he could have done. 

Riley nods. “I need to see him, tell him it’s okay, that he can stop blaming himself.”

“I’ll give him a call, he’s not in the ICU so he can have his phone. Don’t tell Dr. Grey I brought this in here with me, okay?” Riley shakes her head. She’s not technically in a no-tech area herself, she’s stable and not relying on machines to keep her alive.  _ Better than some days. _

Jack dials the number, and his phone rings and rings until it’s picked up by the voicemail. 

“This is MacGyver. I’m really sorry I can’t answer the phone right now, but if you leave your name, your number, and your message, I’ll get back with you as soon as I can.” Riley shakes her head. Even his voicemail sounds apologetic, like it’s his fault he missed the call. 

“Hey, Bozer, why don’t you go see if they’ve told Mac he can get up yet?” Jack asks. “They were asking him to stay in bed when we were down there, right before they told us you woke up.” Riley nods. She wishes they’d put her and Mac in the same room, but the only one available in her trauma level section was her single one that is cramped with just her bed inside it. They had a tac team and three agents caught in an ambush in Iran, and right now medical has their hands full with the members who were in good enough condition to be flown home.

Bozer rushes back in, out of breath.  _ Oh, this isn’t good. _

“Mac’s not in his room. And no one saw him leave.”  

* * *

Mac leaves the infirmary before anyone can catch him. He can’t stand around here, not when it’s his fault Riley got shot.  _ I should have known. I should have seen that that man was stalling, and I should have got us out of there long before he had the chance to hurt Riley. _ He can’t look Jack or Diane or anyone in the eyes. 

He stumbles down to R&D, not really sure what he’s doing there. Maybe it’s what Riley said about the mole. Maybe it’s just that he needs something to work on to distract himself.

But what’s laid out on his desk are the clues to James, and the sight infuriates him.  _ I started this search and I ended up putting everyone I love at risk. _ If there is a mole in Phoenix, they could hurt anyone at any time. And it would make Riley’s bullet wound look like a paper cut. He doesn’t want to think about her bleeding out in front of him, of Bozer’s sightless eyes, staring up accusingly from the floor where he’s lying with a rope around his neck, of Jack falling to the ground, dead before he even hits the floor. Or Sam taking a drink of her morning coffee and collapsing. Patty reaching for the handle of her car door only to be engulfed in flame. Matty never showing up to work, her house a crime scene. 

He sweeps everything from his desk into the trash can beside it, crumpling the carry-out menu, shoving aside the picture of his mom and dad together. He doesn’t want to see it. He doesn’t want to remember that he’s the son of a man who callously threatens innocent people and creates ways to destroy hundreds and thousands of lives. 

The watch clangs against the trash can and topples onto the floor. Mac sighs, taking a deep, shaky breath. He bends over, still feeling slightly dizzy and uncoordinated, and picks it up, placing it beside the last letter he found. The first clue and the final one.

_ You have everything you need to find me. _ But it sure doesn’t feel like it. 

Mac turns the watch over, then frowns. There’s a second layer of something behind the dial. A tiny circuit board.  _ It looks like he combined a smart watch and a… _

The watch clatters to the desk as Mac feels the world start spinning around him.  _ I’m the mole. _ He didn’t mean to be. But he brought the watch here to his lab after he stopped wearing it. And whatever little device James implanted in it has had ample time to find a way into their network.  _ A trojan horse. _ He might not have even realized it if it hadn’t been for the sphere they just recovered.  _ We brought it right into a secure location, and then triggered it to send out a homing signal.  _ This is just the same.

The mole was accessing the network through R&D. Because that’s where he left the watch. And wherever it was sending the signal to, is where James is going to be.  _ All we have to do is trace it. That’s what he meant. That’s all I ever needed to find him. We just didn’t know it. _ He can actually do this. He can find James, and stop all of this...

Mac’s hand hovers over his phone. Jack’s words are echoing in his head. 

_ “Don’t you run off on me like that again, you hear me?”  _

He should call. He should tell Jack everything, and trust that his team will have his back. But when he looks down at the desk again, he can see the note James left. The demand that Mac come alone, or risk everyone he loves. Riley is already hurt, because he didn't see a situation for what it was. He can't risk letting anyone else be  next.

_ James always said I had nothing to worry about if I would just learn to play by the rules. _ Of course, that was after the times one of Mac’s experiments did some damage around the house and he got punished for it, but still, he knows his father. To a point. And he knows that James likes to control him.  _ If he feels like he can’t, he’ll destroy me instead. And he knows that the best way to do that is to take away this family. _

Mac pushes the phone aside, tucking it into a drawer so Riley can’t get worried and track it. He pops the small transmitter out of the watch and starts running a scanner on it. 

Jill wanders up, and he jumps. She must be pulling an all-nighter. “What are you doing, Mac?”

“Just running a signal trace. Routine. Testing something Riley was...was working on.” 

“I heard what happened in Nevada.” Jill leans on the desk, face soft with concern. “How is she?”

“Stable. If it’s anything like last time, she’ll be trying to get out of bed any minute.” He feels his chest squeeze with guilt. He should be there at her bedside. But what he’s doing, it’s to protect her.

“Hey Mac?” Jill asks, and he notices, too late, that she’s looking at the trash can. “Why did you throw all this stuff out?”

He bites his lip, wishing she would leave him alone and leave. “I...ah...I scanned it all. I have everything I need. I’m going to see if the computer can spot anything I missed.”

Jill, fortunately, accepts the mangled explanation. But she does reach for the partly disassembled watch on the desk. “Haven’t thrown this one away yet?”

Mac shakes his head. “Just...following up one last lead.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...we've just set in motion the chain of events that some of you know I've been hinting at for a while...The season finale will be INTENSE and I can't wait...


	24. MacGyver+MacGyver

###  223-MacGyver+MacGyver

MISSION CITY

2003

_“Angus.”_ _His father’s voice stops Mac in his tracks, and he flinches slightly._ Does he know about me setting that desk on fire in lab today? _Mr. Ericson promised he wouldn’t tell anyone, and that he could take the desk home and paint it this weekend so it would be good as new._

_ “Yes?” He turns toward the living room door, trying not to let his voice shake. Dad doesn’t like it when Mac lets anyone see that he’s upset. He says Mac is too old to cry, and that being afraid of honest correction that will make him a better man is ridiculous. But he is afraid, because the basement is dark and he doesn’t like having to sleep down there. He’s never allowed to turn on the lights and he thinks there might be giant spiders. He read about one in a big thick book from Mom’s bookcase, and now he thinks that’s the worst thing in the whole world.  _

_ “Aren’t we forgetting something?” Dad’s voice is cold and he doesn’t even look up from the electronics he’s soldering on the table.  _

_ “Yes,  _ sir. _ ” Mac closes his eyes and cringes. He should have remembered. ‘ _ How many times is it going to take for you to learn to respect your elders, Angus?’ _ Dad’s voice echoes in his head.  _

_ “You’d better be respectful of Grandpa this weekend.” Dad says. “He’s going to come up and stay with you for a while.” _

_ “You’re leaving again?” Mac asks, disappointed. His birthday is in two days, and Dad has missed the one last year, and the one before that… He knows he shouldn’t expect Dad to miss his important work for something as silly as celebrating an arbitrary day that you say you’re a year older, but he can’t help it. Because birthdays remind him of Mom, and every year there are more and more things about her he forgets. He doesn’t want to lose this too.  _

_ “You know I have to. The people I work for wouldn’t be happy if I didn’t give them what they asked for, when they wanted it. And we want them happy. Trust me.” Mac nods. He knows how bad it is to make grown-ups mad or disappoint them. If he makes Dad mad, he can’t have dinner, or he has to sleep in the basement, or if it was really bad he might even get the belt. All of that is bad and he doesn’t like it.  _

_ “Can I come?” He’s big enough now, and maybe he can learn how to help Dad make the things these people want. He’s building really good things now, and maybe if he helps Dad won’t get so busy and not have any time to play with him. Maybe he can make things better. And if Dad will let him work with him, they’ll get to spend more time together.  _

_ “No.” Dad’s voice is firm.  _

_ He hasn’t let Mac come with him since he got scared on that trip to the mountains and started crying and made them late. After that, Dad said if he couldn’t be a good, quiet, obedient boy, he wasn’t going to be coming along anymore. Which had been okay, Mac didn’t always like going with Dad. He kept making him work on math problems in the car and then got mad when it made Mac carsick, and sometimes they went to nasty places like the cold mountains and met with scary people Mac didn’t want to talk to. But now he’s older and he knows he could be good. And he wants to be with Dad, and since he leaves more and more, maybe this is the only way.  _

_ “But I want to come this time!” Mac holds up the robot arm he just finished in class. “I can make things too, now. I’m almost ten, please let me help…”  _

_ Dad takes the robot arm and tosses it on the floor, where it breaks apart into a dozen pieces. Mac flinches.  _ But that was my project for my class, I still have to take it in to have it graded. Now it’s all broken and how can I fix it in time? _ And if he doesn’t get a good grade, Dad will be mad. He shivers.  _

_ “I said no, Angus!” Dad sighs and runs a hand over his face, then reaches out and rests it on Mac’s shoulder. “Listen to me. These people, they’re not like my other friends. They wouldn’t like you.” Mac doesn’t think the other people liked him either, but James was always telling them he was training Mac to follow in his footsteps, and that made them smile and clap Mac on the back and start talking to him. “It’s better for all of us if you stay here. Trust me.”  _

_ Mac just nods. He knows why Dad really won’t let him come, it’s because he makes too many mistakes and Dad doesn’t want Mac to embarrass him in front of these new people. _

_ Dad collects his equipment from the table and walks toward his room. “Now, I have to pack. Finish your homework, and there’s some cold chicken in the fridge if you’re hungry.” _

_ Mac waits until his father shuts his door before he bends down and collects the broken pieces of metal and plastic from the floor, letting his tears finally fall.  _

* * *

LOS ANGELES

PRESENT DAY

Mac looks down at the watch in his hand, then at the street ahead, still lit with streetlights in the faint grey morning light. This is where the signal trace led. 

He might have sort of lied to Jill about it when she sat down and helped him with the tracking algorithms. He insisted it was a test of something Riley didn’t want to wait on, and that once he proved it worked he was going to take her the readouts himself so she could look over them while she’s bedridden, keep her from getting bored and hacking her heart monitor. He didn’t want Jill to worry, and he especially didn’t want her to call someone else and tell them he was working on anything. Not that she probably won’t send it to Matty with her report, assuming Matty will know about Riley’s fake ‘secret project’. But hopefully, by then, he’ll be bringing James in the front door in cuffs. 

He parks his Jeep and looks up at the massive house in front of him. There’s a realtor’s sign swinging in the front yard, and Mac has a sudden vivid memory of how James used to have his meetings with his ‘clients’ in abandoned or for-sale houses. It was always safe middle ground.

He takes a deep breath and steps out of the vehicle, fastening the watch around his wrist. 

_ I kept thinking it had to come back to that watch somehow. The whole time, he left me the clue to trace him _ . And now, he’s going to make the biggest bluff of his life. He’s got to convince his father that they’re more alike than anyone thought.  _ I have to convince him I’m on his side.  _

Like most of his plans,he only has the start of it. He’s not sure what he’s going to do when...if...he can make James think Mac actually wants to join him.  _ I guess after that I’ll just have to improvise. _ He can’t say it doesn’t terrify him. Most of the people he goes up against have no idea what he can do. He can fool them because he does the unexpected. But James knows him, and if Mac isn’t careful, he’ll see exactly what’s happening.  _ I won’t be able to make him think I’m doing something else, like I did with the bank robbers and the chloroform. _ Not that that worked. But to catch James, he’s going to have to be smarter than him. _ Jack would say I can do it. _

He squashes down the thought of Jack. Jack is going to be pissed that Mac went without him. But he can’t convince James that he’s flipped Jack too. And that’s the only way to get close to this monster without him either running or killing everyone Mac cares about.  _ He was testing me, making me prove my worth, because he wants me for something. _ Mac shudders at the thought of James planning a father-and-son terrorist supply business. Jack would be making Star Wars jokes about that one, Mac just knows it. But he isn’t in the mood to smile at the thought.  _ How am I going to convince James that I want to help him hurt people? _ He’ll just have to make it up as he goes. As usual. 

If James is at a house like this, it means he’s expecting to meet someone. Mac walks up onto the porch, checking the whole area for any kind of booby trap as he goes. But he can’t see loose boards or wires or anything else, and as long as he stays on the most direct path to the door, he should be safe. James would never leave traps in a way that made it hard for him to escape a place. 

Mac knocks carefully on the front door, and to his surprise it swings open. That’s odd. He’s not sure whether to call inside or not, and for a moment he’s standing on the front porch back home trying to get inside without making any noise and disturbing James at his work. He shakes off the memory and steps inside, carefully. 

He doesn’t see any tripwires or obvious traps, or even any signs of less-obvious ones. And then he hears it. The quiet muttering that was the background to his childhood, the sound of James working out a problem out loud. 

“Hello?” Mac calls softly.

“What the hell? Did you people decide your bomb was too slow?” The voice isn’t coming any closer. Mac walks down a hall and into a room where a man is kneeling just inside, floorboards torn up in front of him and underneath them, a disconverting amount of something grey, attached to lot of wires that never mean anything good. A small digital clock is counting down, red numbers changing terrifyingly fast. 

His footsteps must catch the man’s attention, because he turns half around, an SAK just like Mac’s in his hand. 

Mac meets the man’s eyes as the timer ticks down to zero. He hasn’t seen James MacGyver in over fifteen years. But he can’t possibly have forgotten him. The same sharp eyes, surrounded by a few more lines, the same curly hair, gone half-grey, and the same stern expression. 

“Angus?” James asks. He stands up as if he’s forgotten about the bomb under his feet, and moves toward Mac. 

Or rather, toward a door, one that leads off into the house. Mac blinks as everything slides into place. James can’t disarm the bomb, so he ran. Mac has only a second to wonder if  _ he _ might have enough time to stop it. And then the whole room explodes.  _ Pressure failsafe. When he ran, it blew. _

Mac turns away, ducking, pulling up his arm and shoulder to shield his face. There’s a wave of heat and a stinging spatter of debris, and he’s being propelled across the room. His whole right side slams hard into the wall beside him, and then everything goes black, even the ringing in his ears fading into nothing. 

* * *

There’s nothing but darkness. Darkness and a strange buzzing sound and warmth. And a vague pain that’s just brushing at the edges of everything, reminding him it’s there, looking for attention. 

He pushes the pain away for a moment. There should be more. Something really important is missing, but he doesn’t know what.  _ Right, eyes open. Look around. _

He blinks. Everything is hazy. The grey sky overhead, the tree branches cutting across it, even the person leaning over him. They’re all blurry, and when he moves his head, they split into doubles of themselves. The person’s mouth is moving, but the sounds are blurred too, wobbly and wrong and hard to translate. Maybe they’re not speaking English. 

He sucks in a breath and groans. His mouth tastes like ash and something scorched. That taste is familiar. Horrible, but familiar. How does he know it? He tries to raise his hand, and a searing pain in his arm and shoulder stops him. He chokes, trying to swallow down the sick feeling the pain has raised in his throat. 

A strangely familiar voice filters into his thoughts. “Well, there you are, Angus. I was beginning to wonder if I wasted my time hauling you out of there.”

He blinks again at the blurry face overhead. “Who are you?”

“I’m your father.” 

_ Wait, what? _ “Who am  _ I? _ ” 

* * *

THE PHOENIX FOUNDATION

WHERE MAC SHOULD BE

Jack rubs a hand over his face, walking into the labs. Mac was down here, or at least that’s what the security badge log said when he had a guard check it after Bozer told him about Mac’s little bid for freedom. Clearly the kid’s not here now. Maybe he did the smart thing and went home to rest, he left the lab a while ago and the cameras show him driving out of the parking lot in his Jeep. But Jack doesn’t know why he didn’t at least come up and say something to Riley.

Actually, he sort of does, it’s just not reassuring. Mac blames himself for Riley’s injury, and he probably couldn’t make himself face her and Jack and Diane.  _ When is he gonna learn that not everything is his fault? _

He walks up to Mac’s desk. The trash can next to it is full to overflowing, and there’s some stuff scattered around it on the ground. Jack leans down and picks up a paper. It’s the carry out menu that James left as a clue.  _ Did Mac throw out all of that stuff? _ Jack shakes his head, but he’s smiling a little in spite of it.  _ Maybe we finally got through to him that he didn’t have to keep trying to atone for his father’s mistakes by wearing himself out hunting that creep.  _

He won’t even scold Mac for running out of the infirmary without checking out. As soon as he finds the kid, that is. He dials Mac’s phone again and something buzzes in a desk drawer. He yanks it open and pulls out Mac’s phone.

_ No wonder he wasn’t answering. _ Jack feels the first tendrils of something cold and wrong creeping in again. Mac isn’t particularly attached to his phone, not in the way Riley is, but he also doesn’t just leave it places. Jack turns around to see Matty behind him, and something in her face makes him grab for the desk chair and sit down in it. 

Jack’s mouth tastes like sand, and like something died in that sand.“Where the hell is he, Matty?”

“He ran out of here over an hour ago in a hurry. Jill said he was really excited, said something about solving a problem and getting a location. He said he was going to tell us something, made it sound like he was working on one of Riley’s projects.” Matty frowns. “And she doesn’t have anything on her drawing board like this.” 

“Well, he sure as hell never showed up.” Jack looks back at the trash can, and then at Matty’s face. “Where did he go? What could he possibly have been running off to do? He shouldn’t even have been out of medical.”

“Jill gave me the location he found. It’s a foreclosed house.” Matty frowns. “And she said he had James’s watch disassembled on the desk.”

“It’s not here now.” Jack says. There’s a messy jumble of papers and random items, the normal Mac mess, but no watch. 

“Maybe he threw that away too.” But Jack knows Matty doesn’t believe that any more than he does.  _ He stopped wearing the watch when I gave him the dog tags. So why would he take it with him unless... _

“Whatever he did, he figured out that last clue.”

“And decided to follow up on it.” Matty whispers, staring at the overflowing trash can and its contents. 

“He must have gone alone. After everything we told him, he went to bring James in himself.” Jack wants to punch a hole through the glass wall.  _ James’s threat, in that letter. Mac took it seriously. _ And rather than trust his team to be able to protect themselves, he did his usual stupid self-sacrificing risky thing and went to find James alone. 

Even after everything they talked about, after all the times Jack reassured him that wasn’t his only option, Mac decided to go out there and go toe to toe with one of the most dangerous criminal masterminds in the world.

Jack has a sick moment of relief that it wasn’t Murdoc.  _ As cruel as James was, he never crossed that line, he would never hurt Mac in that way.  _ It’s horrifying to think that Jack actually grades how bad a situation is on a scale of one to Murdoc.  _ But aside from prison, that monster is Mac’s worst nightmare.  _

He takes a deep breath. This is doable. They have a location, and they’re going to get Mac back. They have to. And then Jack can scold the kid for being an idiot, but right now he just wants to be able to hold him. _ Mac, why did you do something so monumentally stupid? I told you we were gonna hunt down that creep together!  _

He wants to tell Riley to start getting her sat views, but she’s not here.  _ How do I tell her and Bozer?  _ Cage will know the second she sees Jack’s face, with her freaky Jedi mind tricks, but he doesn’t know how to break the news to the others. “Matty, can we get a search…”

“Already happening as we speak, Jack.” Matty’s voice is tense. “I’m as worried about him as you are, I promise you that.” 

Strangely enough, Jack’s been worried for months, but now that the thing he’s been afraid of has actually happened, there’s only a cold, detached determination that makes the room feel too big and too cold, and makes him feel like there’s an empty spot in his stomach.  _ I can’t afford to panic or be afraid. Mac can’t afford it.  _ He knows this feeling all too well. It’s what happens before he locks the human side of his emotions away in a box and becomes nothing more that a machine that will trample anything in his way to accomplish his mission. And right now, that mission is Mac. 

“I’m going to take a team out there.”  _ It’s been hours, but maybe, just maybe, we’ll get lucky. _

“Jack…” Matty’s voice, and the sharp ping of incoming files, stops him. She’s looking up from her tablet with a stricken face. “Satellite searches found Mac’s jeep.” Matty’s voice is shaky. 

“Where he’s supposed to be?”

“Outside a house that...that was leveled by an explosion.” Matty hands him her tablet, and Jack cringes at the photos. Mac’s jeep is covered in ash and flying debris. There’s a brick resting in the smashed windshield. And the house...half the house is nothing more than a smoking crater, with fire trucks and police cars swarming the scene. 

“No. No, no, no.” Jack can’t believe this is happening. That Mac somehow walked into one of James’s traps and that’s it. 

“Jack.” Matty’s hand is resting on his arm. “There’s more. The satellite was in place before this happened, and showed two people leaving the house  _ after  _ the explosion. And there’s a fire and rescue report that just came in. No bodies were found in the rubble.” She sighs. “But one person was dragging the other one free. Like they might have been unconscious.”

“Do we know which…”

“Unfortunately not. But since Mac hasn’t contacted us since…”

“We have to assume he’s the injured one.” Jack was already afraid that would be the case. Honestly, if something happens, he immediately assumes Mac will be the one who spends time in medical because of it.  _ I was shocked when it was Riley who took a bullet yesterday. _

“I’m going. Now.” Matty doesn’t try to stop him. She knows it’s useless. 

He still has to tell the rest of the team. He left Bozer with Riley while he was looking for Mac, because she was getting agitated. She’s still on pain medication and antibiotics, and while those make Mac hyper and childlike, they’ve always given Riley anxiety. She woke up once after a bad op, couldn’t immediately find Jack, and ripped out her IV and all the monitoring equipment trying to find him. 

Sam went back to hunting their mole. They still have no idea who in Phoenix is leaking information to James. But now it’s more important to figure that out than ever.  _ Because hopefully, if we find the mole, we find Mac. _

He leaves it to Matty to inform Cage of the situation, and heads back to the medical wing. He takes a deep breath before he walks in; this is always the worst part. Getting bad news is one thing. Having to give it to other people feels like ripping his heart out. 

“Jack? Is everything okay?” Riley asks. 

Jack sighs. “No.” He can’t lie to her. “Mac is missing. And right now, as far as we know, he’s with his father.” 

* * *

BACK OF A VAN

SOMEWHERE IN LOS ANGELES

“Hold still, Angus. I can’t do this if you keep thrashing around.” 

_ Angus. _ Something about that name rubs him the wrong way, but he can’t figure out why. The hands tending to his burned shoulder and back feel too harsh. He can’t remember why he remembers gentler, if more calloused, hands doing something similar. Everything is so hazy. 

He takes a deep breath, trying to fight the pain. That at least is instinctive. He wonders, vaguely, why he automatically knows how to deal with being severely injured.  _ What do I do? _ He wonders if he was a police officer, or maybe a soldier…

_ Dog tags. _ He reaches up his neck, feeling the cold metal.  _ Maybe they’ll tell me who I am. _ He pulls them out and looks them over, but the name on them doesn’t feel like his.  _ Jack Dalton. It sounds familiar, but not the kind of familiar that means it’s mine. _ Maybe he had a war buddy...maybe it’s better he can’t remember because if he has this guy’s dog tags that probably means the man is dead.

“Stop moving.” There’s a more forceful tug to his arm, and he winces.  _ Jack’s not my name, but Angus doesn’t sound right either. _

“What...what’s my name?” he asks hesitantly. 

“I told you that already. Angus MacGyver.” The last part sounds familiar, at least.  _ Angus MacGyver. _ He whispers the name under his breath, rolling the sounds over his tongue. MacGyver feels normal. Angus doesn’t. 

_ It sounds like...like a cow. No, like...hamburger. ‘Hamburger kid’.  _ He jumps, causing his shoulder and back to flare in pain all over again. He heard someone say that. But not in his voice, and not in his dad’s either. 

“Hold still, damnit!” His father’s voice is even sharper. He flinches, because he recognizes that and he knows, instinctively, that nothing good happens when he hears that tone. He feels cold all of a sudden, but he resists the urge to wrap his arms around himself. “How many times do I have to tell you something before you listen?”

“I’m sorry.” And that feels even more familiar rolling off his tongue than ‘MacGyver’. “I won’t move again.”

“I swear, if that messed you up worse than just rattling around a few memories…” his dad’s voice trails off. And then he starts asking for chemical formulas and physics equations. Those are easy, they’re still there in his head head somewhere. And it helps him think less about how much his burns hurt. When he’s focused on balancing equations for reactions, he doesn’t have time to think about the pain. He’ll have to remember that the next time he gets hurt. 

_ Does that happen to me a lot? _ He can see scars all over his arms and chest, he doesn’t know how he got them all. To be honest, he doesn’t even really know how he got the burns his dad is patching up. 

_ How did that even happen?  _ He doesn’t remember a fire. But then again, he doesn’t remember much of anything. 

Dad shoves some new clothes into his hands. “Here. Get changed. Hopefully this hides the worst of those burns.” Angus nods. His shirt is shredded and scorched beyond repair, and his pants are torn and burnt in places as well. 

The new clothes are slightly too large, and they smell wrong in a way that somehow also smells right. He knows he recognizes the faint scent clinging to them.  _ Maybe because they’re my dad’s. _ The combination of cologne and deodorant is familiar. But it also sends an electric current of fear through his spine.  _ Why am I afraid? This is my father. _

He fumbles through the pockets of his old pants, transferring the things in them to his new pair. There’s a Swiss Army knife, battered and scratched but with his name etched on the back, which is a little strange.  _ Do I lose things a lot? _ He has keys, car and house, but no phone, and no wallet. But there is a handful of loose change, a foil gum wrapper, a packet of those little restaurant matches from what looks like someplace Italian, even the writing is all in Italian and no English. And strangest of all, there are lots and lots of paperclips, and some little wire things that look like he bent paperclips into the shape of a baseball bat and a house and a sort of scrunched and mangled dog. 

There’s a piece of paper too. Scorched on a corner but still legible. It’s an address. He doesn’t know whose. Probably not his own, even though if his memory is this bad he might actually have to carry his home address around with him. The handwriting on the paper isn’t his. It’s too round, too neat. 

_ “I can’t read that chicken scratch you call writing, kiddo, you know that.” _

_ “Maybe you just need glasses, old man.” _

Angus frowns. There’s something about that remembered conversation tugging at his mind. The voice doesn’t sound like Dad’s. 

“Son? Is something wrong?” Hands grip his wrists, and it’s like an electric shock. He leaps backward, shoving and thrashing. He has to get those hands off him, he doesn’t want any one to touch him or hold him down. That’s bad, that shouldn’t happen, he needs to stay away.

“No, stop!” He backs himself into a wall, gasping in pain as his burns touch the back of his shirt.  _ Cold metal around his wrists, a cold grey room, cold eyes across the cold metal table. Gates and bars and fences. Hands on his wrists, holding him down. Someone laughing. Pain, pain, pain.  _

He gasps in a shaky breath and tries to calm down. That was a memory. A bad one.  _ What did I do? _ Because everything about it looked like he was in prison. He remembers the bars and orange and cinderblocks.  _ What am I? _

“Listen to me. Breathe. Calm down.” The voice isn’t as reassuring as it should be, but he does listen. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened.”

“Just don’t let it happen again.”

He reaches for the paper one more time, a little nervously. That’s what started this whole awful thing. He traces over the handwriting with a finger, whispering the name of the street.  _ I can hear it in another voice. A woman’s voice. _ He can see blond hair and tortoiseshell glasses and a white doctor’s coat.  _ Do I go see someone because of all these problems? Is that her? _

He closes his eyes again. She’s not in a doctor’s office, she’s in a science lab. There are all sorts of computers and pieces of machinery and experiments laying around. And there’s a desk...with his name on it.  _ I work in a lab? _

That kind of makes sense, though, with the way he can just rattle off formulas out of nowhere. 

He bites his lip. He thinks he was there. At the lab. This morning.  _ Early morning. Why? _ And she was there too, the girl with the glasses and the pretty handwriting.

He was looking. Looking for something...he looks up at his father, and he does remember.  _ I was looking for him. _

“I should thank her,” He says, slipping the paper into his pocket. “She helped me find you.” He grins. 

“Who helped you?” Dad is frowning, turning his head from one side to the other. “Who knew where I was?”

“Um...Jenny. No, Jess.” He knows her name, he does. She likes math, always smiling, lots of cats. “Jill. From the lab.” 

Dad frowns, but then starts to smile, a wrong kind of smile that makes Angus shiver. He thinks he knows that look, and that he doesn’t like what happens after he sees it.  _ Don’t be an idiot, that’s your father, he won’t hurt you.  _ “I think we should thank her properly. Don’t you?”

* * *

Jack sees the smoke before he sees anything else. He sucks in a deep breath, clenching his hands around the steering wheel.  _ Mac isn’t dead. James pulled him out of there, or at least that’s what it looked like. And James wouldn’t save him for the sentiment. He’d only do that if Mac was useful to him. _ The thought makes Jack sick to his stomach, even though it’s creepily reassuring.  _ James would want him alive, for whatever sick plans he wants Mac to be a part of. _

He chokes back a sob at the mental image of teasing Mac about his father calling him to the dark side.  _ ‘Luke, I am your father. Join me, and we can rule the galaxy as father and son.’  _ When he gets Mac back he is going to binge watch the entirety of the Star Wars saga, the original ones, with Mac while the kid’s in medical. Because there is no way Jack is letting the kid say he can walk off a building blowing up with him inside it. No. Not happening.  _ And if he does I’ll give him a concussion, so he has to go. _ Jack shakes his head. 

There’s a fire truck still at the scene, and a few police cars. He reaches into his glove box and pulls out a badge that identifies him as a Homeland Security investigator.

He walks up to the nearest police officer. “Excuse me, Officer...Jennings. I’m Agent Wild of Homeland Security and I’m gonna have to ask you boys to let us take it from here.”

“What’s this about?”

“You guys think you’re looking at a neighborhood meth lab. But we’ve been chasing a ring of domestic terrorists for a couple months now, and this as their MO written all over it. They knew we were getting close and blew up the evidence. And  _ maybe _ , if your people haven’t trampled all over our crime scene, we just might be able to find something to go on before the next thing that blows up in a train station or a school or City Hall.”

Properly chastised, the officer moves back and calls for a perimeter, and for everyone investigating the scene to move out. Jack and the team with him step into the remains of what must have been a dining room and a sitting area. It looks like this was the epicenter of the bomb; Jack’s seen similar things when he was an EOD overwatch. Judging from the damage patterns, it blew upward, probably a floor-mounted pressure plate.  _ Like the one we thought was in that cabin. _

There’s nothing left here but a smoking hole in the ground. Jack crumbles. He crashes to his knees in the ash, choking on the tears and smoke stinging his eyes and throat. 

Mac isn’t dead, but he might as well be, because he’s not here, and he’s with the first person who destroyed his life. James is no Murdoc, but he might actually be worse.  _ Murdoc at least doesn’t pretend. Everyone knows what he wants. James manipulated Mac and convinced him he was doing cruel things for Mac’s own good _ . 

Jack doesn’t know what the man will do to punish Mac for trying to catch him.  _ And Mac can’t even fight back. _ He could be being hurt right now and Jack is powerless to help him. 

“Agent Dalton?” One of the tac team asks. Her hand hovers over his arm.

“I’m fine,” he snaps gruffly. “Turn this place inside out.” 

They grope through the rubble for what feels like hours. Jack’s face and throat feel caked with ash. They’ve found the remains of the bomb, but the build is going to be hard to identify. Still, it doesn’t look like James’s handiwork, the components are all...well...normal. For a bomb. Every build they have on file for James MacGyver cites the use of unusual chemical substances as explosive charges or accelerants. This is normal military grade plastic explosives.  _ Even Mac’s homemade C4 has a different chemical signature. _

This is starting to look less like James set a trap, and more like he walked into one, and Mac accidentally followed him. Jack pounds a fist against a still-standing wall.  _ If that idiot kid had just told us what was going on… _ When they get Mac back,  _ and we will, or I’ll die trying, _ he’s going to hug the kid and then punch him for this.  _ He knows better, damn it! _ All their conversations about _ not _ pulling this kind of lone vigilante crap again, and now Mac is on his own with a dangerous criminal, and no one knows how badly he’s hurt or what’s being done to him. 

There are so many unanswered questions. He’s confused and frustrated and terrified for Mac. They’ve heard absolutely nothing and he hates it. James and Mac disappeared on Matty’s sat views under the smoke from the house, and by the time it cleared they’d vanished without any trace. 

His phone rings, and it’s so loud in the muted, ashy silence that he jumps. It’s Matty.

“Matty, please tell me…”

“No, Jack. We haven’t found anything more about Mac.” But her voice is choked and fearful.

“Then what…”

He hears her swallow hard. “There was another bomb.”

Jack’s heart drops into his ash-caked shoes. “What? Where?”

“Jack...It’s Jill Morgan.” 

* * *

SOMEWHERE IN LOS ANGELES

TWO HOURS EARLIER

“Nice work.” Dad looks down into the pail at the cream-colored goo. “This is as good as anything I’ve ever made.”

Angus feels a small smile tugging at his lips. He remembers enough to know that his father praising him is something very rare, and that he ought to appreciate this. “Why are we making a bomb?” he asks. 

“Because some very dangerous people want to find us, and we have to stop them.” Dad says. He’s twisting wires and working on the makeshift detonator. He had all of this stuff in the back of the van, and all they needed to do was find a blind alley where they could open the van doors so they didn’t poison themselves with the gases from their work. Angus likes the van, there’s so much interesting stuff inside it. He could stay busy for years making things. 

“I don’t want to kill anyone,” Angus says. He dumps the mixture out onto a newspaper and starts wrapping it up.

Dad looks up, frowning. Angus recognizes that look, disappointment and frustration. “Oh, grow up. You’re not ten anymore. Or have you really forgotten what happens to you when the wrong people find you? Do you want them to catch us and send you back to prison?”

_ Back...I was there. _ He swallows back a wave of panic at the memories skittering around, clawing at the edges of his mind. No, he doesn’t want to go back there. He wanted to get out. How is he even out? Did he escape? He sort of remembers doing that.  _ Salt and batteries and paper in a door latch. _ Things are starting to make a little more sense, but not a lot. 

“We’ll do what we have to do, and then we’re going to leave here and start over. You and me, doing what we do best.” Angus looks down at the mixture in front of him. “Listen to me, Angus.” His father walks over and reaches for his chin, pulling his head up. “You belong with people who know you. No one understands you better than I do. As much as anyone else pretends to, they never will.” 

_ “I don’t care what you did or didn’t do. I am not giving any weapon to someone with criminal charges, who I have never met before today.” _

_ “That’s not gonna blow us all to kingdom come, is it?” _

_ “You’re gonna kill us!” _

_ “I need to decide whether hiring a convicted felon with a rap sheet that includes murder and terrorism was a wise move.” _

Mac flinches at the overlapping voices in his head. He doesn’t know exactly who these people are, but one thing is very clear, they’ve met him and they don’t trust him. 

Dad’s hand is warm and heavy on his shoulder. “I am the only one who will accept you as you truly are. People are afraid of people like us, because they know that they can never compare to us. And that jealousy makes them want to destroy us.” Angus blinks, that sounds familiar. He doesn’t know why. But he remembers someone else who said something like that. And the memory is cold and dark and frightening.

He shudders slightly, then looks up at Dad, who is frowning. “Do you understand me?”

Angus can only nod. Because he remembers enough to know that at least most of it is true. People have always been afraid of him. And that’s why they sent him to prison. 

“Come on, son, let’s go.” Dad picks up the handful of items they’ve been working on, and carries them back into the van, stuffing them all in a bag. The van is a little old, and kind of beat up, but it’s still in decent shape. Angus sits down carefully in the passenger seat, trying not to lean back and make his burns touch the surface. They don’t hurt quite as much right now, but something tells him that’s not a good thing, that they should hurt.  _ The doctors said it was good that my hands were in a lot of pain because the nerves weren’t destroyed... _ He blinks. When did he burn his hands? 

Not knowing things is frightening, and he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t feel safe with huge chunks of his memory just gone. And he doesn’t like the few pieces that are slipping in. They’re full of so much pain and fear and cruelty. Maybe it’s better that he doesn’t remember. Maybe his mind was too overwhelmed by everything, and chose to forget.  _ What kind of horrible life have I had, that that’s better than memories? _

He leans against the van window, only looking up when they stop. Ahead of them in the distance is a tall building with polished glass windows that reflect the sunlight, and a parking lot full of cars. He knows this place. He sees it almost every day. Doesn’t he?

“I work here.” Angus’s head is suddenly full of a jumble of images. A girl with curly hair and a computer. A young man smiling and humming hip-hop out loud while he works on painting masks, with headphones on. A short woman with stern words and kind eyes, and a taller woman with dark hair and sharp features. A blond woman who has an Australian accent. And another person who slips in and out between all of them, a tall, stocky man with a short mohawk haircut and a thick Texas accent, and brown eyes that he remembers as both stern and warm. His hands move toward the dogtags.  _ Jack Dalton...is that him? _

“No. You don’t.” His father’s voice is stiff. “This is where they were keeping you prisoner.” Angus frowns, but now he can see it. A cold grey room, with a cold metal table and chairs. And the tall, stern woman locking him inside.  _ Yes, they were keeping me here. I was a prisoner. _ He thought the prison was bigger, with lots of fence and bars on the windows, but if today has proven anything, it’s that he can’t trust his memory.

His father opens a computer and taps away at it. A few minutes later, he looks up. “Okay, we can get closer now.” He walks up until they’re several yards away from the parking lot, and then hands Angus a backpack and pulls him down a little, so they’re hidden behind a low sandstone wall.

“What does that girl Jill’s car look like?” 

“Blue. A Volkswagen Beetle.” He remembers because a few times she asked him to come with her when she got coffee for everyone in the lab. He doesn’t know why he remembers that and not other things. He remembers that, and someone asking him if he could make a lightsaber, and people talking about zombies. And he remembers a hospital bed and his leg hurting...or his arm...or maybe everything?

His dad shakes the backpack slightly, holding it up. “Go put this under the car.” Angus frowns. This is the bomb they were making. But why does Dad want him to use it to hurt Jill? Jill helped him find Dad, he thought that was a good thing, that that meant she wanted to help.  _ Maybe she even helped me escape. _

“But Jill is nice to me. She doesn’t want to hurt me.”

Dad shakes him, and it makes his shoulder and back ache. He bites his lip so he doesn’t start crying, because he remembers that Dad hates it when he cries. “People aren’t just nice with no agenda, Angus. They want something from you, or they want to hurt you. Remember?” He nods. He’s heard that before. “They want you to think they care about you, so they can use you. So no matter what happens to you because you work with them, you’ll always come crawling back. Because you’re so desperate for someone to love you.” Angus flinches.  _ Why is he so bitter?  _ “But they don’t really care. They want you to stay because you’re useful. And you can’t let them use you any longer.”

He flinches.  _ “Nobody gets to use you, kiddo. No one. And they’ll hurt you again over my dead body.” _

He takes the bag and takes a slow step forward, then stops. He looks down at what’s in his hands and swallows. He blinks and shivers, the world is shaking and blurring again. He can’t tell what’s real and what’s a broken, twisted memory. He’s surrounded by crates. Grabbing frantically through drawers and shelves for things. There’s fire and an explosion and his back sears with pain again. 

Something bad happened. Something very bad, because he made something. He hurt someone. 

He shakes his head. “I can’t.”

“You can’t?” There’s an ominous anger in Dad’s voice. “You do what I tell you, Angus.” 

“No, I can’t do this.” He shakes his head.  _ There has to be a way… _ “I’ll be too slow. My back hurts, and how am I going to get in and out from under the car as fast as I need to? I’ll get caught, someone will see me.” 

Dad frowns. “Damn it. But you’re right.” He snatches the backpack back from Angus. “Fine. Wait here.”

“Please, please don’t.” He knows better than to beg for things. He doesn’t get what he wants by doing that. But he doesn’t want anything to happen to Jill. He doesn’t. “Please, don’t hurt her.”

“Listen. It won’t hurt her. It’ll just scare her.” Dad’s voice is stiff, the kind of stiff it was when he told Angus he had to leave and he couldn’t come along.

“She doesn’t want to hurt us…”

“Shut up.” Dad shoves him, and Angus stumbles. His shoulder, the bad, burned one, collides with a tree, and his vision goes white with pain. He sinks to the ground, curled up, gasping and panting and trying not to be sick, and when Dad comes back, hauls him to his feet, and drags him to the van, the backpack is gone. 

* * *

PHOENIX MEDICAL

NOT THE MORGUE

There’s a stubborn beeping sound that yanks Jill back from the darkness. She frowns, she doesn’t want to get up yet. She pulled an all nighter in the labs before the new radar imaging tech was supposed to be field-test ready, and she just wants to sleep. She starts to reach over to slap her alarm clock, when her arm stops, and a jolt of pain shoots through her wrist. 

She rolls back onto her back, taking a shaky breath.  _ What happened?  _ Maybe she just slept on it wrong. She tries to shake it, but the whole arm is stiff. It feels like there’s a cast on it.

She forces her eyes open, it feels like they’re weighted down. She’s not at home, she’s...in a hospital.  _ Why? _ The last thing she remembers is leaving to drive home... _ did I fall asleep at the wheel and get into an accident? _ She  _ was _ so tired…

“Ms. Morgan?” Someone says, and she hears a door closing. “Are you awake?”

“Huh?” She croaks out. Her throat feels like sandpaper.

“Oh thank goodness.” The voice moves around to her side and someone starts tugging and adjusting things.  _ Why are there all those wires? _ “We were afraid of brain damage from the trauma.”

_ Trauma? _ She must have been in an accident. 

“You came out of the coma a lot sooner than we expected, which is a very good sign. We’re going to keep monitoring your vitals and brain activity, but so far it looks like you’ve been extremely fortunate.” She knows that voice, Dr. Grey. She’s in Phoenix medical.

Jill blinks at the white covering her arm. “What happened?”

“Someone left a bomb in your car. You got out in time, but the blast caught you. Your right arm is fractured, and you have some third degree burns on your shoulders and back, and some second degree on your left and the left side of your face.” Now that Dr. Grey mentions it, Jill can feel the faint pain. Dulled by morphine, it only seems as bad as a sunburn. She knows it will hit in full force soon. 

“Why?” she asks.

“We don’t know. The bomb fragments recovered at the scene are still being analyzed. At the moment, we can’t tell if this was personal or some sort of attack directed at you as a Phoenix employee.”

Jill sucks in a shaky breath.  _ She doesn’t know about the search for James, or the threat. _ She saw the pictures of the team. And maybe, somehow, James is convinced Mac cheated in his search, and is making good on his threat to hunt down the others. 

“I need to talk to Director Webber.”

“Good, because I need to talk to you.” Matty opens her door. “They told me you were awake. We were all worried.” She nods to Dr. Grey. “I’d like to speak to your patient in private.” Dr. Grey nods and steps out.

Jill blinks, trying to clear the remaining fuzziness from her vision. Matty sits down on a chair next to her bed, her voice low and soft. 

“Someone knocked out the parking lot cameras. We believe it was a mole who’s been working in Phoenix, sending information to James. Someone who works in your department. And it’s possible you were close to uncovering them, so they decided to make sure you couldn’t.”

“Someone in R&D?” Jill asks. It seems unlikely. She has monitored logs of all of their computer time, and yes one of her techs was using the computers to make sure he got a reservation at an exclusive restaurant, and another one watches anime in between waiting for cultures to mature, and there’s that one guy who keeps breaking through her specifically coded firewall just so he can bid on baseball cards on ebay, but she can’t think of anything that could be the work of a mole. 

“Scans of our network traced the breach in the files we know were stolen to the R&D subnetwork. Not to one of the stations, but it’s possible someone was accessing it through a personal device.”

“None of my techs are allowed to bring their phones into the work area, the only exception I make is for Mac, because he uses his phone parts in some of the things he builds. I don’t want my people distracted.”  She frowns. Either someone snuck in a device, undetected, or there’s another explanation for this. “I can’t believe that any of my people would hand over information to that man.” 

“They may have been blackmailed or threatened. Has anyone been acting suspicious?” Matty asks.

Jill frowns. It’s hard to think with the pain medication coursing through her body, but she does know that she went to training like any other agent, she knows what to look for as signs of trouble. And she hasn’t seen any.  _ The only agitated person in my department is...is Mac.  _ And yesterday was worse than ever, it was the way he gets when he makes a mistake, even an accidental one, and is determined to make it right...

“I...I don’t think there is a mole at all.” Jill says. Suddenly, everything that happened this morning makes sense. Mac had his watch taken apart, and was tracking the signal coming from something small enough to have been hidden inside the device. Something that might not only be sending out a homing beacon, but also information. “I think the person who broke into our network is James himself. He was using some sort of device concealed in the wristwatch he left for Mac, and that’s how he broke in. We’re working on something similar ourselves, but it hasn’t reached production yet.”  _ He’s good, I’ll give him that. _ Once again, she’s grateful Mac is on their side. Or was. She cuts herself off at the thought that he may not come home. That’s too horrible to consider.

 “Have my parents been told about the accident?” She asks, starting to sit up. “I should let them know that I’m okay.” 

Matty shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Ms. Morgan, but you can’t contact anyone. As of six hours ago, you were officially declared dead.” 

* * *

“Where are we going?” Angus asks quietly. They’ve been driving for a long time, taking lots of weird turns and backtracking on themselves. He wonders if it’s safe to talk now, if Dad is done being mad. 

He thinks he remembers that Dad gets mad a lot. And he remembers that when he does, it’s best to be quiet and not remind him that Angus is there. But it’s been a while and Dad isn’t gripping the steering wheel like he wants to pull it out of the van, and he’s not cursing out the drivers who pull into traffic too fast or cut him off, so maybe it’s safe now. Angus shakes his head. He knows how to tell how volatile a chemical compound is, but he’s not so good at predicting if and when Dad is going to explode. He hopes this time he was right. 

“My job.” Dad turns to him. “Since my last clients saw fit to try and trick me, and take my product without paying for it, they’re going to need to be reminded that that’s not any way to do business.” He frowns. “I’m not leaving town until I get my money, and until I make sure that they won’t cross me again. And that in the future, no one else will either.” 

“How are you going to make them pay?” 

“I’m going to ask them for it, and make sure they can’t say no.” Dad pulls the car into an underground garage, then parks. “And I’ll need your help to do it. I want to be out of this city by tonight, far away from anyone that wants to hurt you or me.”

Angus follows him through the building, and down into some sort of maintenance hatchway that leads into tunnels. 

He shivers. The tunnels are chilly, and his footsteps echo strangely. He knows where he is, or he thinks he does. The walls are familiar, rusted and curving. And the water splashing around his feet, he knows that. He takes a stumbling step, then leans against the wall for balance, because it feels like his head is spinning and he’s going to fall down. He’s going to get lost, but he can’t get lost, he has to get out because he’s going to be found…

“Angus!” The sharp voice pulls him out of his head. His father is shaking his shoulders. “What are you doing?”

“Sorry.” He shakes his head and starts walking. Nothing is wrong. Nothing is hiding down here waiting to catch him. No dark evil eyes watching.  _ What kind of books and movies do I watch, to be afraid of a monster living in the sewers? _ But he can’t shake the image of a crouching creature, with burning eyes and a black cloak, lying in wait to pounce, leaning toward him like a vulture.  _ There’s no such things as vampires. Every story of them can be explained by modern science that has nothing to do with the undead rising from graves. _

For some reason he feels like he’s had this conversation before, with someone. Arguing about decay rates and contagious disease and blood coagulation.  _ Who was I arguing with? _ But whoever it was, he knows he won the argument. There’s no such thing as vampires, and certainly not vampires in the L.A. sewers. 

“Where are we going when we’re done?” he asks. 

“Anywhere we want.” Dad says. “You and I together, well, the world won’t know what hit it.” He sounds oddly cheerful, for someone slogging through a sewer drain. “I’m so glad you finally decided to join me.”

Something about that rings hollow. Angus doesn’t remember being the one who left. He thinks Dad was the one who kept going away, who wouldn’t let him come when he asked. But maybe his memories are mixed up again.

He thought being back with his father would feel right. Sons and fathers belong together, they’re supposed to work together and that’s normal. But the longer he’s here with the man, the further they go from that place he remembered, the more wrong it feels.

He would almost be afraid this man was lying to him if it wasn’t that he does recognize the face. This isn’t someone pretending to be his father. But it still sort of feels that way.

They stop at a ladder that leads up into more darkness. Dad goes first and moves something that scrapes and screeches. Angus follows him up, into a space that’s huge and deserted and dimly lit by some bare fluorescent bulbs. Walls and stacks of shipping crates divide the space he can see up into some kind of crazy maze. He blindly follows his father through it until they reach a spot that’s near the middle, with a tiny view of a front door through a couple of the gaps in stacks of crates. 

The warehouse is full of equipment like a lab. There are long tables and shelves of beakers and bottles and other supplies, and tools spread out all over the surfaces. He can smell bleach and heated metal and something a lot like the C4 he just mixed. 

“Wow.” He looks around the room in amazement. “You built all this?”

“Yes I did. Took me a while to find a good building and the right equipment, but I had a nice little hideaway where I could make everything I needed to in peace. And then my clients decided to stiff me on the check. Let’s get busy.” Dad hands him some bottles and jars. “We have a lot of work to do.” 

* * *

ONE WALL AND FIVE BEDS AWAY FROM JILL

“I want the fact that Jill Morgan is alive to go no further than this room. Is that clear?” Matty says. Riley nods. She picks at the blanket over her legs, feeling furious and helpless. Someone is hurting the people she works with, the people she cares about, and she’s trapped here in a hospital bed. 

They don’t know what’s happened to Mac, Jill almost died, and Riley can’t even put her feet on the floor without a nurse or Bozer scolding. 

Matty continues. “Jill is certain that the mole Oversight was chasing was a false lead, and that James himself planted a trojan horse device in the lab to access the system. Which means that to shut down the cameras, he had to be close enough to hack our systems remotely. We’re monitoring sat views from three hours before the bomb went off, but cloud cover is making that very difficult.”

Riley nods.  _ Of course Mac goes missing on the day L.A. is cloaked in clouds and smog.  _ It reminds her horribly of the helicopter crash in Kazakhstan. When they almost lost Mac.  _ Don’t think like that. We’re going to get him back. _ But if he was injured in the explosion, and James doesn’t take him to a real hospital...

“So what are we supposed to do?” Jack asks. He’s pacing like a caged wolf, and Riley can see him turning one of Mac’s paperclips over and over in his fingers. “How the hell can we lose them like that?”

“Mac has no devices on him that we can track, we have no idea what James’s car looks like, and the hack into our cameras cut off before a trace could be completed. Someone went to a lot of trouble to disguise the device that was used. And the virus they planted is still wreaking havoc in the surveillance systems.” 

Riley feels useless.  _ If I was healthy, I could be in there helping kick it off our networks. _

Sam speaks up, from where she’s standing by the door with her arms folded. “Oversight has been informed of the situation, and the newest intel on the mole. She’s inbound and ETA is two hours.” 

“We can’t just wait here.” Bozer says. He’s been strangely quiet, and Riley figures he feels guilty. He was the first one to discover Mac left the infirmary, and she’s sure he’s beating himself up for having lived with Mac and not noticed the signs. She’s seen it before, that look on his face, in the siblings of kids from school who ODed or committed suicide. The ‘how did I not know someone in my own house was so wounded’ expression is a special kind of brokenness.

“No, we are not just going to sit around,” Jack says. “I’ll grid search the whole city if we have to.”

“We have BOLOs out to the police, and at all public transit stops. They won’t be leaving by airport or train or bus,” Matty says. “And we’re running Friar on all traffic cams in the city. But James is very, very good at not letting his face be caught on them, we already know this.” 

Jack sighs. “I’ll kick in every door in the damn state if I have to.”

“Maybe you won’t need to.” Riley’s been thinking, and there might be a way to track Mac, even without his phone. “Mac traced a signal that the trojan horse device, which Jill said was in his watch, right? That’s how he found that house, and most likely his dad. But the watch isn’t here, it’s not in the trash, and it wasn’t in his jeep when your team searched it, right Jack?”

He nods.

“So maybe he was wearing it. And maybe, if it survived the explosion…”

“We can track him with it. Riley, you’re a genius,” Bozer says. 

“I’m going to reverse-engineer Mac’s signal trace and see if I can get it to pick up the sending unit in the watch. It’s a long shot, but it might be the only thing we have.” Riley says. “Now, will someone please let me have a computer in here?”

Matty shouts for someone to bring Riley’s rig from the patient belongings lockers. As soon as they hand it to her, Riley turns it on, glancing at the battery charge in the corner. “Someone get me a cord for this.” Bozer does, handing it over silently.

Riley can feel all the eyes on her. She’s their best and maybe only shot at finding Mac. She can’t screw this up.

Mac erased the data from his computer; it’s a wonder Jill remembered the address she wrote down for him. But just like Paul Carter’s work on that passport case that Dawn stumbled into, the data isn’t gone. Just lost. Riley chases backdoor after backdoor searching for the right thread to pull on. 

By the time she finds it, the doctors have had to come in and temporarily disconnect her from the heart monitor, because her stress levels were sending it through the roof and triggering alarms at the nurses’ station. 

Reversing the tracking doesn’t take nearly as long as finding the data did. But Riley almost wishes it had. Because when the results pop up on her screen, it’s nothing more than the hateful little red box that reads ‘no signal found’.  _ Damn it that’s the worst thing I can see. _ She knows that never, ever means good things. Not when they lose someone’s comms, and not now. 

“James shut off or destroyed whatever device he was receiving the signal on, and...Mac’s watch might have sustained too much damage in the explosion. I’m sorry, but it…” Riley stops. “Wait. I got something. It’s very faint, but there’s a signal.” She has no idea how they got it. But she won’t question small, or not so small, miracles.

“Where?” Jack asks.

Riley zooms in. “It’s a warehouse. At the edge of town. I’ll send the coordinates to your phone.” But he’s already on his way.  _ Please, please, bring Mac home.  _

* * *

It’s getting late. Angus leans back from the mixture he’s stirring and wipes sweat off his forehead. He can’t let that drip into this, it could be really, really bad. 

His head still hurts from this morning, and so does his back, but mixing and measuring and building things is somehow very reassuring and natural. Like he does this all the time. It feels right and safe, and as long as this is what Dad wants him to do, maybe it won’t be bad at all that he doesn’t remember everything. He remembers how to do this, and how to make things work, and what can be safely mixed with what. And lots of ways to set things on fire. 

Dad gets up, stretching his back. “You hungry?” he asks.

Angus shrugs. He hadn’t really been thinking about food, not when the only thing in his head was stoichiometry.  _ ‘Kiddo, if I have to drag you away from that desk and tie you down to make you eat, I’m gonna do it. You’re just too damn skinny.’  _ That voice again. He nods. He really should eat. 

“I’ll go get us something. Keep working on that, alright?” Dad leaves, and Angus finishes measuring and mixing the last of another batch of C4. He thinks this might be even better than the last one. 

Dad is going to be really happy. And he’ll be even happier if he can eat his dinner without having to think about finishing those detonators. There are three on the table he was at, but one of them doesn’t have a receiver yet. There’s probably the perfect substitute in a wifi chip from that laptop sitting over by the wall. He picks it up and starts opening the housing when the door slams open. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Dad shouts. Angus flinches. He forgot, he shouldn’t touch Dad’s work. He hears something hit the floor, and he stands up quickly, shoving the computer away from him, just as hands latch onto his shoulders. 

Dad slams him against the wall, and Angus gasps at the pain when his burns hit hard against it. “What were you thinking?”

He can’t answer, it hurts so badly and he thinks he might be sick. He just shakes his head. He wants to say he’s sorry, that he won’t do it again, but the sound won’t come out of his mouth. 

_ “You touch my stuff again, and it’s going to be worse. You hear me?” _

_ “Angus, you leave that alone! Or you’re going to regret it.” _

_ “Damn it, son, when are you going to learn to listen to me and keep your hands off my work?” _

_ “This door is closed for a reason, and if you come in here again without my permission, there’s going to be hell to pay.” _

He swallows hard, choking on tears he can’t shed and memories he can’t push away.  _ This happens over and over, and I never learn. No wonder he hates me. No wonder he left. _ He left. There’s another missing piece, that’s why Angus was trying to find him.

“What did you do?” Dad’s voice is a little calmer. 

“I was going to use a wifi chip from the computer to finish that detonator,” he says quietly. “But I didn’t take anything apart.” 

He blinks, because even though he remembers Dad scolding him for breaking things, he remembers something else too, someone who pretends that it annoys them when he dismantles everything in sight, but someone who smiles while they’re watching him. It’s that person from his old job or prison or whatever. The one who might be the Jack on those dog tags.

“I have everything I need. There’s no reason to start breaking things I didn’t tell you you could use.” Dad sits down at the table again, and Angus sits down at his desk, hoping his back stops hurting. He isn’t hungry now, even the smell of Chinese food coming from somewhere just makes him feel kind of sick with the pain in his back.

He fiddles with the watch on his wrist, twisting the hands around. It died at some point, the face is cracked and dirty, and the time is all wrong. He wipes some of the soot off it, and glances at the cover.  _ Why doesn’t that look right? _

It comes off. He forgot about that. He carefully pries the watch apart. There’s something else on the inside, a tiny little transmitter and receiver. But it’s broken. He can tell the antenna isn’t right. 

_ This is Dad’s watch, he’ll be mad if I messed it up. _ Because however it got broken, it’s definitely his own fault. _ I should fix it. _ He reaches for some of the tools on the bench and starts to work. Maybe if he makes Dad happy, he won’t get hurt again.

_ ‘You know that doesn’t work, right?’ _ He jumps, startled, at the voice in his head. It’s the maybe-Jack again. But this doesn’t sound like a memory conversation, it sounds like...like he’s got a Jack in his head who talks to him.  _ Maybe I really am crazy.  _

_ ‘Kiddo, people like him aren’t gonna change their ways because of anything you do. He hurts you because he can. And he’s going to keep doing it for as long as you let him. You hear me?’  _

Angus shivers. Mostly because he knows the voice in his head is right. He still doesn’t remember much, but being shoved into the wall brought back a whole cascade of memories that are still pouring into his head. 

_ “James was a miserable excuse for a father, and you deserve better.” _

He chokes off a bitter sob. Whoever it was that told him this, they were someone who really cared. Someone who, despite everything Dad insists, understood him and loved him, and all the different sides of him, even the destructive confusing ones. 

He jumps when Dad walks over and lays a hand on his shoulder, and when he looks up, he shakes his head. It feels wrong to call him Dad now. More like James is the right name. Like it’s always been the right one and he just couldn’t remember.

“You did good work, Angus.” Dad...James...holds up his tablet, a news site loading on the screen. There’s a photo of a mangled, scorched blue car, and several lines of text underneath. But what stands out to him is the headline. 

**Local Think Tank Employee Killed in Car Bombing.**

He swallows a choked cry.  _ Jill is dead, and I did this. It was my bomb.  _ Now there is no going back. He’s a killer, and he knows what happens now. His mind is a flickering chaos of images, a reporter on a TV, a smoking, ruined building, a police officer with stern eyes and cold handcuffs. This is why he was in prison, because he makes bombs that kill people. James was right. This is where he belongs. 

* * *

PHOENIX FOUNDATION

Bozer can feel his stomach churning and his breath hitching and his hands shaking.  _ It’s going to be okay. Jack has a location, he’s going to find Mac. We’re going to bring him home. We are. It’s okay. _ But he can’t calm down. 

He hasn’t been able to calm down since he found out Mac left medical without so much as a goodbye. And then vanished into thin air. And then when Jack came to tell them he’d been found with James...Bozer was barely able to keep from having a full on meltdown right there.  _ I should have been watching him better. I should have made sure he didn’t do what he always does and run out of medical to go try and be a hero again. _

He wonders what possessed Mac to ignore everything that anyone said to him and go off after James himself.  _ I thought he gave up on going it alone, learned that he had a team and a family he could rely on. _ Maybe they didn’t do enough. Maybe they didn’t prove he could trust them to help him. Maybe he was just so afraid. 

But whatever happened, Mac is gone. And until they get him back, Bozer is never going to stop looking for him. He may not be an interrogation specialist like Cage, or a hacker whiz like Riley, or a trained Delta operative like Jack. But that is his best friend out there who needs him. And last time, Bozer let him down. 

He won’t do it again.

_ When we get him back, I’m not letting him out of my sight again. _ Bozer knows he tells himself that every time Mac vanishes or gets kidnapped or held hostage... _ And how horrifying is it that there are actually enough incidents that I can notice a pattern? _ But this is the last straw. 

Jack joked about getting Mac a tracking chip like Ralph Jericho used for his son, and while it sounds kind of creepy and futuristic horror movie vibish, Bozer will take that over the very real and present horror movie that is Mac going missing in the hands of a world-class criminal. 

He’s torn, because Riley is worried and stressing and she’s stuck in medical, and he’s half afraid that if he leaves her, she’ll do just what Mac did and try to check herself out and do something totally stupid. They can’t afford to have any more disasters today.

But he also wants to be right there with Jack and Cage and Matty and the tac team. He wants to be there for Mac, he’s known him the longest and he should be there to get him back. Because he’s absolutely, one hundred percent sure, that James has been tearing away at Mac’s self-confidence and at his tiny little shreds of self worth.  _ He already spent ten years destroying him. He wouldn’t stop now. _ Bozer has no idea how bad it will be when they get Mac back. How much James’s cruelty will have sunk in.  _ He’s so strong, but James is his weakness. He thought he had to believe everything that man said to him, every cruel thing.  _

He keeps looking toward the door and at his phone (no one is telling him he can’t have it now) and Riley notices. She squeezes the hand he has gripped around hers. “You want to go with them.” It’s not a question.

“They don’t need me.”

“And I do?” Riley chuckles, but her eyes are damp and teary. “Mac needs you most. Go on. I’ll still be here when you come back. I’m not going to do anything dumb and die before I get to punch him in the nose for being an idiot.”  _ She sounds just like Jack. _

Bozer stands up, shaking out the pins and needles in his feet, and hurries into the hall. The team will have already pulled out, but he knows where they’re going. He doesn’t have to go in on the breaching with them, but they might need him to help keep Mac calm. He shoves away a mean little voice that says Jack can do that just fine on his own.  _ He probably can, but two is better than one.  _

He starts toward the door to get his car, but at the thud of boots in the hallway, he looks up. Someone is coming toward him, someone with long dark hair, black tac gear, and a very familiar face. 

“Leanna?” Bozer asks.

She gives him a sad imitation of a smile, one that barely makes it to her lips let alone her eyes. “I came as soon as we got word who was missing. Oh Bozer, I’m so sorry.” Leanna says. “When they told me we were going to start searching for Mac…”

She doesn’t get any further, because Bozer pulls her into a crushing hug. His world is shattering, but she came for him. For him and Mac. She just made herself part of this little family, for better or worse, 

“I convinced my boss that since I spent the most time with Mac I was most qualified to search for him. She’s attached me to your team for as long as it takes to get him back.”

“They did that? For Mac?”

Leanna nods. “Matty still has some pull with the agency. And I don’t think the government wants to lose someone who’s been that valuable.” She frowns. “But personally, I just want to see him come home alive and safe. You don’t deserve to lose someone else, Bozer.”

“Thank you. I can’t even begin to tell you how much…”

“So don’t. Tell me what I need to know, and where I can start looking.” 

Bozer nods, leading her to the War Room. “Jack and a team are en route to a location Riley got. If we hurry, maybe we can still catch up and get there when they get Mac back.”

“We?” Leanna asks.

Bozer nods. “I’m a field agent too. Survived spy school. And I am not letting anything stop me from searching for my best friend.” 

* * *

Angus is just finishing attaching the last of the detonators to their bombs (This is all he is, whether he wants to be or not, he’s a killer now) when there’s a thud at the door. He looks up, just as the door collapses inward and several men in black tactical gear pour in through it. He feels someone yank him backward, down below the table and counters. He turns to see James. 

“Damn it, how the hell did they find us?” The man hisses, but it sounds more like he’s talking to himself. He pulls Angus back into a corner. The men are spreading out through the room, searching around the crates and shelves and the walls. It’s only a matter of time before they find him and James. He shivers.

“We’re going to have to get past them to the tunnels.” James whispers. “They’re sticking to the walls, probably planning to clear them and move inward. We need to split up; it’ll be harder for them to catch us that way.

Angus just nods. He doesn’t know why, but he’s not afraid of these people. He thinks normally, they help him.  _ Have they come to save me? It’s too late. They can’t save me from myself. _

“They’re here for you. And if they catch you, they are going to send you back to prison.” James’s voice is hard and cold as he presses a gun into Angus’s hand. “I’ll meet you at the parking garage. If I’m not there in an hour, take the van and leave.” 

The cold metal and soft rubber of the gun grip feels strange in his hand, like he doesn’t use it often. But firing a gun is all math and science. Trajectory and physics and the chemical reactions that spark the gunpowder. It’s just science, And he’s good at science. He’ll be good at this. He has to be.

He swallows down a painful ache in his throat.  _ What am I doing? _ He doesn’t know anymore if he’s doing this for his father or for himself. Does he really want to run from these people? Did he really want to make those bombs? Did he really want to kill the woman who he never remembers being cruel to him, ever? Or is he still just James’s puppet, still the loyal, obedient son who would do anything to make his father happy with him?

He risks a glance toward the people coming closer. Should he go up to them? And then one turns, and he sees the glitter of handcuffs at their waist. HIs thoughts tangle and jumble all over again, memories of the cold metal around his wrists and every horrible thing that happens after. James was right, they are here for him, and they want him to pay for what he’s done. He has to get out of here. Maybe he doesn’t have to stay with James, doesn’t have to keep on being the monster he was turned into, but he can’t let these people near him or the rest of his life will be a living hell. 

He steps around the corner...and comes face to face with a man in black tac gear, a man with brown eyes and a short mohawk. A man who’s pointing a gun directly at him. He swallows.  _ They aren’t my friends now. They want to punish me for what I did.  _

Part of him wants to let them, he deserves to suffer, he killed someone. But part of him is also just so afraid.  _ I can’t live like that anymore, I just can’t.  _

He raises his gun and levels it at the man’s head. “Get out of my way.”

* * *

ABANDONED WAREHOUSE

MAC HAD BETTER BE HERE

“Careful. We don’t know what’s going on in there.” Jack doesn’t want to think that Mac’s own father might torture him. But the truth is they can’t rule that out. And he certainly wouldn’t put it past that man to use his son as a human shield. They can’t afford to take that risk. 

His team members nod. Jack knows they’re all fully aware of the situation. Especially Cage. Jack checks his gear one last time in the back of their van. He can see the warehouse down the street, they’ll have to be careful when they move in to avoid being spotted. Their scans haven’t detected any operating security cams, but they also can’t get thermal because of the metal shipping crates stored inside the building, so he has no idea where Mac or James might be hiding and watching for them from.  

“Room for one more on that team, Dalton?” A new voice through the comms asks.  _ Patty. _

“Anytime, boss.” She must have come straight from the airport. And when she opens the back of the van and climbs in, Jack can see that she’s still in the tac gear that she must have been wearing in Iran. There’s sand and a little blood on it, and her dark ponytail is straggling loose, the strands around her face stiff with sweat. She looks tired, but dangerous. 

“Matty briefed me on the situation in-flight. Let’s go get that son of a bitch.” Jack nods. 

They approach the building low. There are two entrances and a loading dock, and Jack simply jams the lock on the loading dock doors.  _ No sense in giving them too many ways out.  _ He stays with the team at the back, while Patty’s team prepares to hit the front door. Front usually just drives the people they’re after to the other exit,  so Jack figures his best shot at getting Mac and James is staying right here at this door. 

When he gives the go sign, he kicks in the door and rushes in. The warehouse is, as scanning predicted, full of shipping containers. They’ve been haphazardly stacked in rows, making a sort of strange industrial maze. If this wasn’t life and death, Jack would say it was a great idea for a haunted house. Because there’s no telling what’s around each corner. He keeps clearing them silently. He wants to call for Mac, but James is in here too and he can’t risk alerting the guy to his location. But the desperate cries trapped in his lungs are about to choke him.

He turns another corner, gun raised...and almost collides with someone. He stops, the cries choked back one more time, because it’s Mac, right in front of him. There’s blood matting the kid’s blond hair on the side of his head, and he looks too pale. 

But the most wrong thing about everything wrong in this picture is that in Mac’s white-knuckled hands, there’s a gun pointed at Jack’s head. Held in hands that are far, far too steady for the Mac Jack knows.

“Mac?”

“Get away from me.” Mac shakes the gun menacingly. “Put your gun down, and step back. Do it! Now!” He sounds so much like Jack it’s terrifying.  _ Is that what I’ve done to him? Made some part of him enough like me that he can do this? _ Jack suddenly wishes he’d never been able to get near the kid, not if he managed to corrupt someone so kind and innocent. 

But something still isn’t right. Even if Mac suddenly hates him, even if he’s really turned his back on the Phoenix, and Jack can’t believe that would be possible, there should be some recognition in his eyes. But they’re blank. 

_ Was he drugged? _ And then Jack’s eyes flick back to the brown-red patch in the kid’s hair.  _ Blow to the head...amnesia.  _ He doesn’t believe it. But the proof is standing right in front of him, finger on a trigger. He lowers his own gun, he can’t afford to make Mac do something he would regret later. 

“Mac, this isn’t you. You don’t even like guns. Put it down.” 

“I won’t let you hurt me.” The voice is cold and calculating, not Mac, not at all. Neither are those ice blue eyes.  _ He forgot me? _ Jack knows it shouldn’t hurt, not given the situation, but it does.  _ I thought maybe I would be the one person he would know. The one person who could shake him back out of this.  _

Jack keeps his hands spread wide and his eyes on the kid’s. “Mac, It’s me, it’s Jack. And I would never ever hurt you. You know that, kiddo. Come on, Carl’s Jr. You know me. Put the gun down.” 

There’s a flash of recognition in Mac’s eyes.  _ Who knew that stupid nickname would actually be something he’d remember? _

“Come on, kiddo. Listen. You’re always telling me how dumb those movies that rely on their main character getting amnesia are, and telling me that’s not how it works. I don’t want this to be the first time you prove yourself wrong about your movie realism criticizing skills, alright?”

The gun wavers, starting to lower. “You’re not going to hurt me?”

“Mac, I would never hurt you. Ever.” Mac lowers the gun even further. “Yeah, that’s it kiddo. You know me. Uh-huh. You know you do. Come on, come here, let’s go home, okay?”

“Home?” Mac asks.

“Yeah, home, so I can make you watch Die Hard and Star Wars with me. You complain, but you love them, you know you do. We’ll get you back to Phoenix and they can see what’s wrong with your noggin, alri…”Jack trails off. Because the second he said Phoenix, Mac’s eyes started darting around the room, his forehead wrinkled the way he looks when he’s trying to solve a really complex math problem.  _ Yeah, those memories are in there. You can find them. _

“J-jack?”

“Yeah, kiddo, yeah, it’s me, we can go home, okay?” He feels like crying.  _ It worked. It actually worked. He’s gonna remember.  _

And then Mac’s eyes go wide with horror and shame. “I can’t go back, she’s dead, I killed her.” _What the hell? Wait,_ Jill. As far as Mac would know if he saw any news report, Jill died from that car bomb. A car bomb whose components were a handmade detonator and home cooked C4. _Oh God no. His dad probably forced him to help get rid of the one person who might know how to find him._ And Mac, remembering nothing about why he should be afraid of James, might have innocently revealed Jill’s involvement. _And now he thinks because of him, she’s dead. Oh shit._

“Mac, Jill, she’s…”

A bullet impacts Jack’s vest and he flies backward onto the floor.  _ What the hell? That wasn’t Mac. _ Someone else shot him.  _ James, you bastard, you saw how close you were to losing him and you wouldn’t let it happen. _ But Jack is just as stubborn. And he actually cares about Mac, not just about what the kid can do.  _ I’m gonna win. And James, you are never gonna lay hands or eyes on my kid again. Because he’s not yours. Not anymore. He’s mine.  _

But by the time Jack gets to his feet, the kid’s gone. 

“Mac?”

There’s nothing but boots clattering and the eerie crackle of flames. 

* * *

Patty slams the front door open when she hears Jack give the all clear to breach. She’s exhausted, three days spent cleaning up the mess in Iran, and then a stressful flight home, haven’t been kind. But she’s worked on less sleep before. 

And being here is less stressful than being back in her office, watching it all unfold from her official position as Oversight, would be. Sometimes, she wonders if she made the right choice.  _ They needed someone to fill that void, someone who respected the way Phoenix operates, who knew its agents. _ But on days like this, nothing can keep her behind a desk.

She’s chased James MacGyver for over a decade. Across continents, following the trail of death and destruction in his wake. And she’s watched his son become a completely different person, transforming himself from a skittish, traumatized ex-con to a capable, qualified, highly skilled field agent.  _ Even if he can’t always see that himself.  _

She leads her half of the tac team through a maze of shipping crates and low walls, stopping when she smells a bitter smoky odor. Burning chemicals. Someone is either setting a trap or torching evidence, and she needs to know which.

She steps around a corner and into what looks like a makeshift lab. Most of which is on fire. Flames are leaping up from the desks and shelves, reaching for a set of three strangely shaped items. The next second, her training identifies them; bombs. This whole place is going to blow any second. “Everyone, get out!” Patty yells into her comms. 

“We’re not leavin’ till I get James!” Jack shouts back.

“The whole warehouse is rigged to blow, Dalton, I’m ordering you to stand down and evacuate!” 

“Mac’s still in here somewhere, I saw him, and I almost had him, Patty. And then James shot me.” He doesn’t sound hurt, just pissed. “But he gave away his location. I almost got the bastard, Patty. I’m not lettin’ him get away from us again.”

Matty’s voice crackles in, coming from the van. “Jack, there’s no time…”

The flames are louder than ever. Patty turns to her own team, she has to think about them first. They can’t afford to lose more people than they have to today. “Everyone. Out. Now!”

They barely make it to the door before the first bomb goes off. Patty is flung to the ground in the street with the concussive blast. But she’s on her feet again and diving for cover, with the rest of her team, before the second two go off together, in a blast of flame and sound that shatters glass, crumbles concrete, and sends two walls collapsing like they were dynamited. The other two, already unstable, follow suit. And in less than a minute, all that’s left of the warehouse is scorched, dented shipping containers and a smoking pile of concrete and rebar. 

Patty swallows a cry of helpless rage.  _ James MacGyver, I’m going to hunt you down and kill you slowly.  _ He’s cost her not only Mac, but also Jack, and she will feel no remorse when she stands over his broken, bleeding body. 

Beside her, Cage stands up slowly, clutching a shoulder bleeding from a shrapnel gash. It’s rare that Patty sees the former Scorpion agent shaken. But right now, there is nothing but raw emotion on her face.  _ They were the only family she had, for so long. _

A car pulls up, through the haze of smoke and settling dust, and Patty turns slightly to glance at it, ready to unload her anger on the unsuspecting civilian inside.  _ Who let them through? _ But she recognizes the vehicle. It’s Bozer’s little teal car. She has no idea what he’s doing here.  _ God what do I say to him? _ He’s going to have to know that not only is Mac missing, missing from a building that just exploded that may well have killed him, but that Jack refused to leave and that he’s gone too.  _ How are we ever going to come back from this? _

Bozer jumps out of the car, accompanied by Leanna Martin, his CIA spy school girlfriend. Patty only has time to wonder if she’s the CIA liaison Matty mentioned bringing in on the case, before he runs up to her. 

“Patty? Where’s Jack?” Bozer asks.

Patty can’t force herself to answer. She just shakes her head. Matty joins her, staring at the building, dust settling and turning her black hair grey. 

Bozer looks from her to the leveled, smoking ruin of the warehouse. “No,  no.” Leanna takes a shaky, wet-sounding breath.  _ Damn it how did we lose two of our best agents, two of my family, in one day? _

Something clatters, in the street in front of her. The manhole is moving, probably a result of the building collapsing further and forcing air into the tunnels below it. But if there are any secondary explosions, they might be wise to clear the area. She starts to lean down to say something to Matty when the sound comes again. 

The cover continues jiggling, and now she can hear something too. Someone grunting and cursing. Cursing very colorfully in a strong Texas accent. 

_ There’s no way... _ She rushes over and pries up the cover with her hands. Underneath, Jack is looking up, his face soot-stained, but clearly very much alive. She kneels down, rocking back onto her heels on the pavement. The relief is so strong she feels her eyes burn, and wipes them with the back of her hand. If anyone notices, she’ll blame the chemical smoke. 

“Dalton, not that I’m not glad to see you alive, but  _ what the hell? _ ” 

Jack just shakes his head grimly, reaches down, and holds up a smoke-blackened arm that doesn’t belong to him, that’s attached to a limp body. For a moment, Patty is sure he’s found Mac, and as usual, the kid’s landed himself a one way ticket to the infirmary. But then she sees the face. 

“Caught the bastard divin’ into the tunnels just before it all blew. Caught up with him and put him out cold, and then waited it out down there till the smoke cleared.”

“You’re fucking insane, Dalton.” Patty rarely curses, but this time she feels justified.  _ I thought you were dead. _

“Jack?” Bozer asks. 

“Dalton, I swear to God I’m gonna kill you for making me think you were dead.” Matty marches up and slaps him across the face, so hard Patty flinches. “But nice work bringing in James. Where’s Mac?”

Jack doesn’t say anything. 

“Was he in there?” Leanna asks hesitantly, looking at the ruined building. _ Did he survive one bomb only to be killed by another? _

“I don’t think so.” Jack shakes his head. “I would know if he was dead. I would. He’s not dead.” Patty wishes she could share his firm belief. But the truth is, they don’t know. And they won’t until they sweep the building. 

James groans and rolls over, spitting out blood and what might be half a tooth. “Where did you tell Mac to go?” Jack shouts. “Where did you send him?”

James just laughs. And in the next second, Jack is on top of him, snarling like a junkyard dog, pounding his fists into the man’s face. Patty knows this isn’t even a desperate bid for information. This is Jack grieving and furious and needing someone other than an innocent bystander to take it out on. She’s seen this before. And it’s always ugly. Jack has never killed a man in this kind of blind rage, but he’s also never lost someone he cares about as much as he does Mac, and on top of that, she knows how much Jack hates James for how he broke Mac a lifetime ago.  _ There might be a first time for a death. _

Patty steps in, trying to put some space between Jack and the bleeding man. “Agent Dalton,  _ stand down. _ ” Jack pauses, his fist still raised. James is on the ground, blood streaming from his lips and nose, his face a rapidly darkening mess of bruises and cuts. Jack is panting, shaking, his fists bloody and battered, eyes wild. “Mac wouldn’t want this.” 

She steers him away from James, slowly. Matty is looking on sadly, and Cage looks ready to follow Jack’s example, but Bozer is gaping, and Leanna looks a little bit sick.  _ They’ve never seen the full extent of Jack’s rage before. _ She has. And she remembers what the first time was like. Jack doesn’t seem like himself, not like the kind, gentle, fatherly person he is to his team. He seems like a monster. She wonders if people like him were where the old legends about werewolves began. Someone who can, in a split second, become a bloodthirsty, terrifying, vengeful force of nature. 

“Guys, it’s Riley!!” Bozer shouts. “She still has a signal!”

“From the watch?” Matty asks. “Where?”

“A parking garage. She’s sending coordinates. A couple blocks away. It’s still there!”

“Go!” Matty says. Patty jumps into the van, Jack beside her, grim faced. They take corners at terrifying speed, and what feels like seconds later, they’re pulling up outside the garage. 

“Where is it?” Jack shouts. 

“Northwest corner of the building!” Bozer says. They run past a startled parking attendant and into the building. 

“Can she tell which floor?” Patty asks. 

“No.”

“Then we’ll search every one.” Patty turns back to the attendant. “Don’t let any cars out until we come back. It’s a matter of national security.” The man nods, eyes wide. 

“You’re getting closer,” Bozer says as they head in the direction Riley’s trace indicated. “You’re...on top of it now. Literally. Signal’s weaker.” 

“He’s in the basement level.” Jack says. He heads for the nearest set of stairs and Patty follows. She doesn’t like what it means that the signal hasn’t moved at all. Maybe Mac is just scared and hiding. But maybe he’s hurt, curled up and unable to drag himself any further. She won’t let her thoughts get darker than that. She can’t.

Jack races down the stairs, and hurries to one of the few vehicles on this level. A grey van, unassuming, but just the kind of thing James would be likely to have. He glances it over.

“Careful. It could be…” Patty trails off, because Jack is already flinging open the side door. 

“Mac!” He shouts, and then stops. He reaches down onto one of the seats and holds something up. The watch. And Patty turns away, because she can see the tears in his eyes. 

When she hears the hoarse, sobbing scream, and the slam of a fist against metal, she pretends she never did. 

It’s a silent, sad ride back to the rest of the team.

“Cage.” Jack’s voice is tight as she walks up, her arm bandaged. “Get me answers. James knows something. And I don’t want you to stop until you get it from him.” 

She nods curtly and walks up to the man now handcuffed in the back of one of the vans.

She leans in, her face the cold, calculating expression that Patty remembers it having when she first met the Aussie spy. “I promise you, if you continue to hold out on us, Jack and I will make your life pure hell.”

“You didn’t find him at the garage, I take it.” James’s voice is snide, despite the bubbling of blood on his lips. “That’s where I told him to go.”

“And where to from there?” Jack snaps, moving forward. 

“How should I know where Angus ran off to?” James shrugs. “He could be anywhere.”

Jack pulls out his gun, switching off the safety. 

“Jack.” Patty rests a hand on his shoulder, feeling the tension thrumming through every muscle. “He’s not worth the bullet. Come on.”

* * *

WAR ROOM

ONE WEEK AND FIVE DAYS LATER

Jack feels like he’s dying. He almost wishes he was dead. It would hurt less than pacing around the Phoenix waiting for news that never comes. Mac is somewhere, out there, definitely hurt and probably scared. He thinks he murdered Jill, and after what happened with George Ramsay, it’s small wonder he’s terrified. Jack can’t imagine how horribly afraid he must be of being found and taken back to prison.

_ I could tell him the truth. I could save him all of this pain.  _ But he can’t tell Mac if he can’t find him.

Riley shouldn’t be in here yet. But she is. He can’t make her leave, and he wouldn’t want to. He knows how she feels. Mac is a brother to her. 

“I’m monitoring every security cam in the city. No matter where he wandered off to, we’ll find him.” Riley runs a hand over her eyes, blinking. “And Cage is still with James. If he knows anything, we will too.” 

“You didn’t see Mac’s face. Riley, he was...he didn’t even know  _ who _ he was.” Jack shudders at the memory of the cold muzzle of a gun in his face and the colder blue eyes behind it. “James twisted him up so much he was going to shoot me.” 

“But there was enough of him left in there not to.” Riley sighs shakily. “Somewhere out there, he’s lost and confused and probably trying to come home.” 

Matty walks in. She looks as tired and sad as the rest of them. “Bozer and Leanna are taking turns studying the clues James left, seeing if they can piece together anything that might tell us where Mac might have gone.” She holds out a paper. “And this was delivered to us this morning.” It’s a manila envelope. “Jack, it’s addressed to you.”

He takes it, looks it over with a cursory glance. The handwriting isn’t Mac’s. He has no idea who might have sent it. 

He opens it carefully, there’s something rattling inside. But it’s not heavy. Not terribly so. It’s jingling like keys or...

The metal in his hand feels like it burns, even though it’s cold. “Those are my dogtags. Whoever sent them...they took Mac.” 

* * *

SOMEWHERE ON THE SAN FRANCISCO STREETS

Mac huddles behind a dumpster, clutching his dirty coat around himself. He feels cold all the time now, he’s sure it’s because the burns on his shoulder and side are infected.  _ But I can’t go to a hospital. I killed someone. They’ll send me to prison. I can’t go to prison. _ Mac only has shattered, twisted memories of that piece of his past, but they haunt him every night, and they’re getting worse along with the fever. 

He managed to scrounge some expired medical supplies from behind a chain drugstore one night, and cleaned and patched up the wounds the best he could, but they don’t exactly throw out the kind of strong antibiotics he probably needs at this point. If he doesn’t either get better on his own by some miracle, or find some way to treat this, he’s going to die out here like a mangy stray dog. 

He can’t really bring himself to care as much as people would probably expect.  _ I killed someone, I don’t deserve to live.  _ He saw a paper someone had thrown out that blew down in one of the alleys, while he was making himself a place to sleep, it had an article in it about the explosion. The car his bomb destroyed is nearly  _ obliviated. _ The memory of that blue Volkswagen is one of the few clear things in his head. 

He knows they’ll search for him in Los Angeles. So he managed to find a semi loading up at a warehouse and crawled inside, hoping it would get him far enough out of town. It only got as far as San Francisco before stopping to unload, and Mac almost got caught when the employees at the store the truck was supplying opened the back doors. He’s too afraid to try again, and it’s too risky to attempt to hitchhike. Somewhere in his mind is a memory of statistics about that.  _ Why do I know so many useless unconnected things? _ He can remember the formula for cubic polynomials but he can’t remember how he knows that man from the warehouse. Why the way he said ‘Carl’s Jr.’ triggered a flood of broken images, of car chases and explosions and this ‘Jack’ smiling at him with something like love in his eyes. 

He pokes halfheartedly through the things he pulled out of the dumpster this morning; he’s learned that small cafes are better luck than grocery stores. The stores sometimes donate their unsold food to free distribution centers or homeless shelters, and there tends to be more security around them too. He can’t risk being caught on a camera.

Granted, the other places have their problems as well. Mac’s been run off more than one homeless scavenger’s ‘territory’, and he can’t afford to try and work something out because he can’t risk being recognized. He’s had to avoid some non-human scavengers as well, he has no desire to be dealing with rodent bites on top of all his other issues. 

There’s some bread that doesn’t look particularly unappetizing, and some bruised pears. He doesn’t want to risk getting food poisoning again, he couldn’t eat for two days after one careless mistake. He grabs what looks edible and starts to eat, as quickly as he can before anyone else comes along. He’s so hungry. Even the stale food tastes good. 

The sky opens up, and Mac flinches, ducking in behind the dumpster where the flipped-back lid sections provide something like a roof. He’s probably going to get some poor kitchen worker in trouble later for leaving the dumpster open, but he can’t afford to catch a chill on top of everything else. 

He huddles there and wonders how much longer he can survive this life. Whether it might not be better to just turn himself in and hope they think he’s so dangerous they lock him away in solitary forever. But he can’t be sure they will,and if they don’t, it will be even worse than now. Than the things that terrify him the most when he curls up somewhere dark and tries to make himself believe it’s safe to close his eyes.  

The worst part about being here on the streets isn’t the rain, or the hunger. It’s the fear. He barely sleeps, not after the first night. After someone found him and...He pushes away the memory.  _ I got away, nothing happened. I’m alright. _ But that doesn’t change the fact that it could happen again. And that more than once, people have tried. 

Some of them offer him a few dollars, or some food, or some other street-variety payment, which he has the choice to reject, and for the most part they leave him alone when he does. But some don’t bother. He’s been lucky to be able to get away the few times someone genuinely tried to assault him. 

If anyone tried now, he couldn’t fight them off. He’s too weak. All he can do is try to stay out of sight and hope no one finds him. 

He looks up at the sky. It’s already clearing, the rain never lasts long in California. This was a surprisingly bad day of weather.

But it looks like the clouds are coming back, the alley seems darker again. And then Mac realizes it’s because someone is standing in it, in front of him, casting a shadow. He didn’t even hear them coming. 

He cringes and huddles away.  _ Please just be looking for food. _ But the person crouches down and reaches for him, turning his chin toward them. Mac blinks up at them. He doesn’t remember this thin face and those dark eyes. 

“It is you. I almost didn’t believe it when Luis told me he saw you hanging around here.” The voice is familiar, at least. Mac closes his eyes for a second, but all he sees is darkness, and he hears water. Why water? Or maybe it’s just the rain running down the storm drains. “My, my, my, aren’t you a pitiful sight? I never thought I’d see the day  _ you _ were sleeping in alleys and stealing from a trash can.” Gloved hands brush his wet, dirty hair off his forehead. “Oh dear, and quite the nasty fever too.” He shakes his head. “Oh, it must be even worse than it looks. No smart comeback?”

“Do I know you?” Mac asks, shivering again and pulling away from the hand. 

“Don’t you remember me, Angus? I’m hurt.” The man frowns. Mac bites his lip, studying the nearly black eyes, the turned-up collar of the black leather coat, the gloved hands resting on his shoulders. 

He does remember...something...he knows this man. But he doesn’t know how. 

Something about him feels unsafe. Maybe it’s just because he looks like a villain straight out of one of Bozer’s attempts at film noir.  _ Wait, who’s Bozer? _ The sudden flicker of memory has him glancing up at the man again. Whoever he is, he’s definitely part of the past Mac can’t seem to find a way to piece together.  _ And he doesn’t want to kill me or I’d be dead. _

“Oh, this is too good to be true. You really don’t remember anything? Amnesia is so...delightful.”  _ What? _ “Oh, I meant dreadful. Sometimes words are so confusing.” Something about all this is setting Mac’s instincts on edge, but he has no idea what. 

He can hear sirens in the distance, a police car or something. He flinches out of habit. He’s been avoiding those all week. 

“Please, leave me alone.” He doesn’t know who this man is, but there’s something about him that is terrifying in a bone deep way. Mac blinks up at him. With the black eyes and high-collared coat, he looks like a vampire. Or maybe that’s the fever that’s making him see a vicious, bloodthirsty hunger in those cold eyes. 

“I don’t think you mean that.” Mac flinches as the sirens come closer, and begins to shiver uncontrollably again. “You don’t want to go with them.” The stranger’s grip is tighter now. “None of them can help you. You’re a killer now. They put people like you in a cage.” Mac nods, biting his lip even harder. “But I can keep you out of there. I can help you.”

There’s something wrong about that offer. Mac can’t put a finger on what, it slips and slides like the oil slicks on the runoff water swirling through the storm drain in front of him. 

He knows what’s waiting for him if those sirens and lights find him. He has vivid and terrifying memories of steel bars and cold handcuffs and hungry eyes. And in there, he can’t even run away. 

He doesn’t know what will happen if he goes with this man. Just like he doesn’t know how he knows the ‘Jack’ who didn’t shoot him at the warehouse. Somewhere in that confusing muddle of shadowy lost memories are people who trusted him, people who didn’t want to hurt him. People who tried to help. 

He has to choose between the devil he knows and the one he doesn’t. And right now, Mac’s safety lies in the unknown.

“Okay.” He stands up slowly, and the stranger slings one of Mac’s arms around his shoulder. “I still don’t remember who you are.”

“Oh, you can just call me...Dennis.”    
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise I won't make everyone wait months, like an actual show, to find out what happens after this...I'm going to be posting the first episode of Season 3 next week...


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